BR  125  .W544  1922 
Williams,  Horace  Blake. 
Fundamentals  of  faith  in  th 
light  of  modern  thought 


Fundamentals  of  Faith 

in  the 
Light  of  Modern  Thought 


By 

HORACE  BLAKE  WILLIAMS 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1922,  by 
HORACE  BLAKE  WILLIAMS 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Introduction  by  Bishop  Edwin  Holt 

Hughes 5 

Preface 9 

I.  Some    Present-Day    Tendencies    in 

Religion 11 

n.  The  Reality  of  the  Unseen 22 

III.  Life's  Demand  for  a  Religion 37 

IV.  Jesus  Christ,  the  Answer  to  Life's 

Supreme  Demand 53 

V.  History's  Testimony  to  Jesus'  Claim  .  69 

VI.  The  Problem  of  Evil 85 

VII.  The  Problem  of  Freedom 99 

VIII.  What  is  Truth? Ill 

IX.  Is  Perfection  Possible? 126 

X.  Life's    Great    Paradox — Self-Asser- 

TiON  Versus  Self-Renunciation  ....  140 

XI.  Life  and  Death 154 

XII.  The  Risen  Lord 167 


INTRODUCTION 

Having  had  the  privilege  of  an  advance 
reading  of  the  pages  which  follow,  and  having 
been  requested  to  write  some  words  of  preface, 
I  gladly  enter  these  pages  to  serve  as  the 
forerunner  for  one  of  my  friends  and  pastors. 

I  cannot  think  that  it  so  much  matters 
whether  I  agree  with  every  sentence  that  the 
author  of  this  book  has  written.  Doubtless 
few  of  us  have  ever  found  several  hundred 
pages  of  writing  with  every  detail  of  which 
our  own  personal  views  would  correspond. 
For  there  is,  after  all,  a  personal  orthodoxy, 
and  there  is  a  church  orthodoxy.  If  we  try 
a  man  by  the  personal  standard,  he  may  be 
quite  heretical;  if  we  try  him  by  the  church 
standard,  he  may  be  very  sound.  This  is  be- 
cause a  church  standard  is  and  should  be 
broader  than  a  personal  standard.  If  it  were 
otherwise,  thousands  of  labels  of  infallibility 
would  plague  the  world.  As  an  example,  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  has  no  one  doc- 
trine of  scriptural  inspiration.  Mr.  Wesley 
wisely  put  it  that  "the  canonical  books  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament  Scriptures  contain 
all   things   essential  to  salvation."     Years  of 


6  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

thinking  could  not  possibly  have  yielded  a 
better  or  safer  statement.  That  broad  creed 
of  inspiration  has  saved  our  church  from  a 
crisis.  I  hold  to  the  dynamic  theory  of  in- 
spiration; one  of  my  ministerial  friends  holds 
to  the  verbal  theory.  From  my  personal 
standard  I  must  regard  him  as  heterodox, 
and  from  his  personal  standard  he  must  re- 
gard me  as  heterodox.  But  from  the  church 
standpoint  we  are  both  orthodox,  having  room 
for  each  individual  view  within  the  ample 
statement  of  the  church's  creed. 

Now,  the  author  of  this  book  has  won  for 
himself  the  repute  for  independent  thinking. 
His  mind  is  not  unacquainted  with  ventures. 
But  the  adventuresomeness  is  wholly  reverent. 
The  pioneer  always  remains  the  mystic;  and 
when  he  does  not  dogmatically  pronounce  a 
sure  opinion  of  the  nature  of  the  burning 
bush,  we  still  know  that  he  has  obeyed  the 
divine  command  for  reverence,  and  that  he 
regards  the  place  whereon  he  stands  as  "holy 
ground."  His  touch  upon  the  mysteries  is 
never  profane,  nor  sacrilegious,  nor  blas- 
phemous, nor  even  overbold.  As  I  read  the 
manuscript  it  seemed  to  me  more  than  once 
that  I  could  see  the  author  listening  intently 
and  could  hear  him  saying,  "Speak,  Lord,  for 
thy  servant  heareth."     It  is  very  good  and 


INTRODUCTION  7 

important    to    maintain    that    mood    in    the 
Church  of  the  Living  God. 

As  for  the  main  message  of  the  pages,  how 
much  it  is  needed  to-day!  The  world  is 
noisy;  we  need  to  hear  the  still  small  voice. 
The  world  is  nervous;  we  need  to  catch  our 
Lord's  command  to  rest.  The  world  has  a 
great  visible;  we  need  to  get  sure  glimpses  of 
the  Invisible.  The  world  is  unduly  lured  by 
its  own  passing  life;  and  it  needs  to  lay  hold 
on  Him  who  is  "the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever."  Consequently,  the  eternal  in 
time  is  precisely  the  sense  that  the  heart  of 
the  fussy  world  needs;  and,  like  a  refrain,  that 
is  at  once  major  and  minor,  that  note  sounds 
in  this  volume.  Above  the  towers  of  our 
clanging  earthly  cities,  we  see  the  turrets  of 
the  everlasting  City  of  God.  The  mood  of 
"everness"  defeats  the  mood  of  "temporari- 
ness."  The  children  of  the  Lord  walk  the 
ways  of  men;  and  those  ways  are  all  made 
to  slope  upward  to  those  gates  which  we 
shall  enter  to  go  no  more  out  forever.  It  is 
wonderful  to  dwell  in  eternity  here — to  feel 
that  all  fragments  of  the  earthly  calendar  are 
made  complete,  by  God's  grace  and  our  own 
purpose,  so  that  even  now  the  dates  that  are 
written  under  the  term  "Anno  Domini"  are 
given  the  meaning  of  the  everlasting  Lord. 


8  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

That,  dear  readers  all,  is  the  impression  that 
this  book  has  made  on  my  own  mind  and 
heart.  I  am  proud  to  have  within  the  Boston 
Area  a  man  who,  in  the  midst  of  busy  pas- 
torates and  of  overseas  service,  has  been  think- 
ing these  thoughts.  And  I  am  glad  to  place 
these  words  of  mine  in  the  front  of  his  book, 
as  I  put  up  a  prayer  that  the  message  herein 
given  may  have  a  genuine  mission  for  many 
of  the  Lord's  children. 

Edwin  H.  Hughes. 

Maiden,  Massachusetts. 


PREFACE 

The  purpose  of  the  chapters  which  follow 
is  to  attempt  an  interpretation  of  some  of  the 
more  important  facts  of  our  Christian  faith 
in  terms  of  the  ethical  and  scientific  concepts 
of  our  own  day. 

One  principle  has  furnished  the  key  to  this 
interpretation,  namely,  the  assumption  that  the 
fundamental  fact  of  human  history  is  the  growth 
of  eternal  life  in  time,  and  that  the  value  of 
any  doctrine  will  depend  upon  its  relation  to 
this  fact.  This  principle  has  determined  both 
the  choice  of  topics  and  the  order  of  their 
arrangement. 

The  doctrines  of  the  Christian  Church  are 
made  the  subject  of  severe  criticism  to-day. 
Many  men  have  withdrawn  their  consent 
from  these  doctrines,  because  they  can  no 
longer  accept  a  certain  form  of  statement 
with  which  they  regard  them  as  identified.  I 
believe  that  there  are  eternal  truths  under- 
lying these  articles  of  faith,  and  existing  inde- 
pendent of  them,  which  every  honest  and 
reasonable  man  will  support,  if  they  are  brought 
to  his   attention.     These   are   the   truths   by 

9 


10  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

which  we  must  live.     I  have  endeavored  to 
bring  them  to  light  here. 

I  do  not  mean  to  infer  that  what  is  presented 
in  these  pages  is  the  sum-total  of  my  own 
belief  regarding  any  one  of  these  truths.  It 
is  not  my  purpose,  for  instance,  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  claims  of  Jesus,  to  dismiss  at  a 
stroke  a  line  of  evidence  which  is  dear  to  the 
hearts  of  many,  and  to  them  superlatively 
important.  I  insist,  however,  that  if  for  any 
reason  that  evidence  becomes  valueless  to  any- 
one, Jesus  still  has  certain  fundamental  claims 
upon  a  man's  life,  by  reason  of  which  that 
man  owes  to  him  his  service  and  devotion. 
It  is  these  claims  that  I  have  tried  to  make 
prominent  in  this  argument. 

The  ability  of  Christianity  to  stand  the 
final  test  of  a  religion  will  rest,  in  the  last 
analysis,  not  upon  its  marvelous  aspects,  but 
upon  its  truth  concerning  the  nature  of  the 
human  soul  in  its  relation  to  God,  and  to 
eternity. 

Horace  B.  Williams. 

Manchester,  New  Hampshire. 


CHAPTER  I 

SOME  PRESENT-DAY  TENDENCIES 
IN  RELIGION 

These  are  days  of  religious  unsettlement. 
While  human  life  has  made  marvelous  gains 
on  its  material  side,  and  has  won  for  it- 
self incalculable  wealth,  on  its  spiritual  side 
it  is  marked  by  destitution  and  the  lack  of 
deep  conviction.  Outwardly  our  civilization 
has  a  most  imposing  presence,  but  earnest 
souls  are  conscious  that  it  lacks  something 
which  is  necessary  to  give  it  abiding  worth. 
Various  attempts  are  made  to  discover  the 
secret  of  this  lack.  In  the  main  these  at- 
tempts have  failed  because  they  have  been 
unable  to  break  away  from  the  spell  of  the 
conditions  which  they  seek  to  correct.  It 
would  seem,  then,  that  a  search  after  the 
great  need  of  our  age  should  begin  with  an 
examination  of  the  outstanding  religious  ten- 
dencies of  the  age,  to  ask  whether  they  are 
the  leaders  or  the  servants  of  that  which  they 
are  called  to  direct. 

I 

The  history  of  Christianity  may  be  divided 
11 


12         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

into  two  great  epochs,  separated,  roughly 
speaking,  by  the  year  1600.  These  divisions 
are  not  mutually  exclusive,  they  unfold  into 
and  overlap  each  other,  but  they  represent 
periods  when  the  life  of  Christian  society  has 
been  dominated  by  tendencies  distinct  and 
opposite.  The  former  may  be  characterized 
as  the  supernaturalistic,  the  latter  as  the 
naturalistic  epoch  in  the  church's  life. 

Christianity  arose  in  an  age  when  the 
foundations  of  society  were  crumbling.  The 
pagan  religions  had  failed  and  passed  the 
scepter  to  philosophy.  Philosophy  had  ended 
in  skepticism  and  the  negation  of  those  values 
upon  which  humanity  had  set  her  heart.  Juda- 
ism arose  in  an  attempt  to  interpret  life  in 
larger  terms,  but  the  failure  of  her  national 
existence  had  involved  the  collapse  of  her 
religious  hopes.  The  Roman  Empire  had 
established  political  order,  but  she  lacked  the 
power  to  create  and  preserve  the  deeper 
values  of  life.  As  a  result  the  ancient  world 
came  under  the  shadow  that  must  fall  on  any 
age  that  is  not  girded  by  great  ideals. 

"On  that  hard  pagan  world  disgust 
And  secret  loathing  fell. 
Deep  weariness  and  sated  lust 
Made  human  life  a  hell."^ 

» Poetical  Works  of  Matthew  Arnold.     London,  The  Macmillan  Com- 
pany.    1910.     Poem,  "Ohprraann  Once  More." 


PRESENT-DAY  TENDENCIES         13 

Then  it  was  that  Christianity  appeared, 
presenting  a  new  view  of  life.  If  the  old  order 
had  failed,  she  proposed  the  reality  of  a  new 
order.  She  came  to  men  with  the  proclama- 
tion of  an  invisible  kingdom  in  which  life's 
aims  could  be  realized.  If  the  visible  world 
had  proved  insufficient,  if  it  was  unable  to 
preserve  the  deeper  values  of  life  and  give 
to  life  an  abiding  meaning,  this  was  because 
it  was  only  the  husk  of  an  inner  world.  This 
inner  world  is  spiritual,  and  man  must  link 
his  life  with  it  and  live  for  it  if  he  is  to  find 
peace.  The  church  is  the  visible  expression 
of  this  inner  world,  and  provides  the  way 
into  its  life. 

This  announcement  broke  on  that  age  like 
a  burst  of  sunlight. 

"So  well  she  mused,  a  morning  broke 
Across  her  spirit  gray; 
A  conquering,  new-born  joy  awoke. 
And  fiUed  her  life  with  day."* 

Men  took  heart  and  turned  their  faces  toward 
the  front.  An  exhausted  society  received  a 
new  vitality.  A  new  life  began  to  rise  in  the 
generations,  and  for  a  thousand  years  the 
Christian  world  moved  forward  under  the  im- 
pulse of  that  life. 

'  Poetical  Works  of  Matthew  Arnold.    London,  The  Macmillan  Com- 
pany.    1910.     Poem,  "Obermann  Once  More." 


14  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

But  it  was  inevitable  that  the  interest  of 
man  should  turn  again  to  this  world.  The 
weakness  of  early  Christianity  lay  in  the  fact 
that  it  accepted  the  verdict  of  the  ancients 
that  this  world  is  wholly  empty,  and  proposed 
an  order  of  life  that  was  separate  from  it. 
With  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century 
the  attitude  of  thought  begins  to  change. 
Attention  turns  again  to  the  world  of  nature. 
Its  glory  and  its  beauty  begin  to  throb  in  the 
mind  of  man.  Scientific  method  is  born.  Its 
application  produces  a  new  world-view.  Na- 
ture is  broadened  immeasurably  by  discovery 
and  investigation,  while  at  the  same  time  she 
wins  a  depth  of  meaning  and  a  unity  of  life. 
A  new  age,  the  age  of  naturalism,  begins. 

Naturalism  was  inherently  opposed  to  super- 
naturalism.  The  one  looked  for  its  guiding 
principle  without;  the  other  sought  it  within. 
Naturalism  was  based  on  two  propositions 
destined  to  affect  religious  thought  and  life. 
It  declared,  first,  that  man  is  a  part  of  nature, 
second,  that  nature  is  self-sufficient.  And  it 
was  inevitable  that  under  this  influence  the 
old  view  of  a  spiritual  order  apart  from  nature 
should  gradually  fade  away. 

II 

At  first   the  church   opposed    this   attitude 


PRESENT-DAY  TENDENCIES         15 

of  mind.  But  it  was  no  mere  passing  mood, 
and  it  was  unavoidable  that  she  should  come 
under  its  sway.  Although  never  openly  in- 
dorsing the  naturalistic  position,  she  found  her- 
self compelled  to  deal  with  it,  and  later  to 
make  friends  with  it.  To-day  the  forms  of 
her  life  are  largely  determined  by  it.  The 
outstanding  religious  tendencies  of  our  day  are 
inherently  naturalistic  tendencies.  As  we  look 
over  our  religious  life,  what  are  its  distinctive 
features.'^ 

1.  The  tendency  to  rationahze  the  content 
of  religion.  Never  before  was  the  demand 
so  insistent  that  the  facts  of  religion  shall 
submit  to  critical  examination.  The  scientific 
method  of  investigation  that  has  spread  itself 
throughout  every  sphere  of  life  has  invaded 
the  sacred  precincts  of  faith.  No  object  of 
faith  can  hope  to  escape  it.  God,  revelation, 
miracle,  providence — all  the  sacred  mysteries  of 
other  days — must  present  themselves  before 
the  bar  of  criticism.  The  man  of  to-day  re- 
fuses to  be  bound  by  beliefs  and  opinions  that 
have  no  other  claim  to  reverence  than  their 
age.  He  insists  that  the  Bible  shall  bear  the 
weight  of  critical  investigation  and  approve  its 
claim  against  this  test.  Essentially  this  spirit 
is  the  Protestant  spirit.  Protestantism  arose 
as  a  cry  of  freedom.    It  was  the  answer  to  the 


16  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

divine  command,  "Prove  all  things."  Under 
its  influence  great  good  has  been  accomplished. 
The  Bible  has  become  a  new  book;  religion 
has  broadened  its  meaning;  the  light  of 
intelligence  has  fallen  upon  the  church's 
path. 

2.  The  tendency  to  humanize  religious  values. 
One  of  the  outstanding  characteristics  of  the 
age  is  its  return  to  the  human  standpoint. 
All  the  values  of  life  are  measured  by  their 
contribution  to  human  welfare.  Man  finds 
the  key  to  his  problems  within  himself.  Things 
are  of  worth  as  they  minister  to  his  life.  In 
philosophy  this  new  humanism  has  taken  the 
form  of  a  restatement  of  metaphysical  prob- 
lems originating  with  James,  Dewey,  and 
Schiller,  and  known  as  pragmatism,  which 
measures  all  values  in  terms  of  practical  con- 
sequence. This  same  spirit  sets  a  definite 
task  before  religion.  It  must  relate  itself  to 
everyday  life.  It  must  minister  to  human 
welfare.  The  church  must  justify  her  place 
in  society  by  her  contribution  to  man's  material 
well-being.  She  cannot  stand  aside  from  the 
struggles  of  life — struggles  political,  economic, 
social.  If  so,  she  forfeits  her  right  to  the 
respect  and  support  of  men.  In  the  battle  of 
the  workingman  for  larger  liberty  and  larger 
gains  she  must  show  a  sympathetic  and  active 


PRESENT-DAY  TENDENCIES         17 

interest.  But  this  tendency  is  inherently  a 
naturalistic  tendency.  It  is  based  upon  the 
supposition  that  human  life  is  sufficient  in 
itself. 

3.  Closely  associated  with  this  is  another — 
the  tendency  to  socialize  religious  effort.  This 
is  the  result  of  a  new  consciousness  that  the 
gospel  of  Jesus  has  its  application  to  the 
present  world,  and  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  to  be  realized  on  earth  in  the  reconstruction 
of  human  society.  During  the  last  twenty- 
five  years  we  have  passed  over  rapidly  from 
the  individual  to  the  social  emphasis  in  re- 
ligion. The  church  is  beginning  to  realize 
that  to  fulfill  Christianity's  mission  to  the 
individual  she  must  Christianize  social  condi- 
tions. These  are  the  molds  in  which  the 
individual  life  is  made.  This  tendency  is 
giving  birth  to  new  forms  of  service.  It  is 
ordaining  a  new  ministry  and  creating  a  new 
architecture.  Not  only  so.  It  asserts  itself 
as  the  sum  of  Christian  duty.  For  is  not  the 
message  of  Jesus  a  social  message,  and  is  not 
love  the  fulfillment  of  the  whole  law.^^  But 
the  more  insistent  it  becomes,  the  more  it 
falls  into  the  naturalistic  position  of  the  pre- 
ceding tendency,  that  if  men  are  fed  and 
clothed  and  recruited,  the  social  problem  will 
be  solved  and  life  will  come  to  its  own. 


18         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

III 

These,  I  maintain,  are  the  outstanding  ten- 
dencies of  the  reHgious  Hfe  of  our  day.  They 
have  been  productive  of  much  good.  They 
have  wrought  for  the  spread  of  reHgious 
activity.  But  examined  closely  they  present  a 
negative  aspect.  Life  has  gained  in  breadth 
while  it  has  lost  in  depth.  Practical  effort 
has  grown  immensely,  but  in  the  meantime  the 
contemplative  life  has  withdrawn  into  the 
background.  Methods  for  deepening  spiritual 
experience  are  dying  out.  The  practice  of 
prayer  and  belief  in  its  efficacy  are  becoming 
less  and  less.  The  need  of  the  means  of  grace 
for  the  deepening  of  the  devotional  life  is  no 
longer  felt.  Looking  closer  still,  we  discover 
that  these  tendencies  are  based  upon  a  funda- 
mentally false  conviction,  namely,  that  life  is 
determined  by  external  relations;  that  if  exter- 
nal relations  are  changed,  life  will  become 
wholly  satisfactory.  They  forget  that  life 
draws  from  an  inner  source  and  must  find  its 
control  there. 

Thus  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  with 
all  its  achievement  this  is  an  age  of  religious 
unrest.  Despite  our  gains  in  knowledge  and 
the  control  of  the  resources  of  nature,  we  are 
not  happy.  Life  is  beset  with  stern  contra- 
dictions and  difficult  problems,  and  lacks  both 


PRESENT-DAY  TENDENCIES         19 

the  power  and  the  insight  to  deal  with  these 
successfully.  The  ideals  of  our  religion,  with 
all  their  glamour  and  appeal,  are  unable  to 
provide  a  principle  broad  enough  to  coordinate 
our  multiplied  activities  or  deep  enough  to 
command  our  unquestioning  loyalty.  There- 
fore the  feeling  is  abroad  that  somehow  re- 
ligion is  losing  her  soul. 

Biblical  criticism  is  good;  but  the  Bible  for 
many  has  lost  that  axiomatic  certainty  in  the 
light  of  which  the  earlier  ages  lived,  and  we 
are  apt  to  forget  that  intellect  alone  cannot 
settle  the  problems  of  faith,  that  reason  alone 
cannot  enter  that  life  of  the  spirit  that  throbs 
through  Scripture.  Service  of  humanity  is 
good;  but  we  must  remember  that  life  is  more 
than  physical  preservation,  and  that  true  wel- 
fare must  be  measured  not  by  outward  accre- 
tion, but  by  inward  expansion.  A  testimony 
to  the  hollowness  of  the  age  comes  to  us  from 
the  recent  European  war.  Conscientious  men 
are  asking,  What  is  the  matter.^  Is  Chris- 
tianity a  failure.^  With  all  our  civilization 
men  are  yet  brutal  and  cruel.  Something  is 
the  matter.  The  matter  is  that  we  have  put 
success  ahead  of  self-realization,  that  life  is 
being  lost  in  the  effort  to  live. 

This  brings  us  to  the  one  thing  needful  to 
our  age:    a  reaffirmation  of  the  reality  and 


20         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

necessity  of  the  spiritual  life.  Life  must  win 
an  inner  depth,  if  it  is  to  win  stability  and 
peace.  For  life  is  more  than  outward  rela- 
tions. It  has  temptations  to  face,  burdens  to 
bear,  sorrows  to  suffer,  inner  perfection  to 
gain.  These  are  possible  only  as  we  are  able 
inwardly  to  transcend  the  world,  and  thereby 
gain  a  victory  over  it.  The  soul  must  live  a 
life  independent  of  the  world,  of  time;  it  must 
be  liberated  from  human  limitation.  This  can 
be  only  as  it  wins  an  inner  meaning  for  itself. 
Of  this  deeper  life  Jesus  Christ  is  the  world's 
example.  He  lived  in  constant  communion 
with  the  infinite,  and  thereby  his  life  was 
raised  above  sin  and  chance  to  perfection  and 
truth.  His  kingdom  was  the  inauguration  of 
a  new  world  of  spiritual  meaning  and  victorious 
trust.  His  teaching  was  the  endeavor  to  show 
men  the  way  into  that  spiritual  world.  In 
this  his  divinity  consists:  the  depth  of  his 
experience,  his  consciousness  of  union  with 
God.  If  Jesus  Christ  is  to  be  the  Saviour 
of  this  age,  he  must  be  our  spiritual  Master, 
that  is,  he  must  bring  us  in  touch  with  a 
deeper  life  that  cleanses  the  heart,  strengthens 
the  will,  and  renews  the  mind. 

There  comes  to  me  a  story  from  the  later 
days  of  Jesus'  life.  One  evening  as  the  shades 
began  to  fall  he  came  to  that  home  in  Bethany 


PRESENT-DAY  TENDENCIES         21 

where  he  had  rested  so  many  times.  There 
were  two  sisters  there.  One  of  them  busied 
herself  with  the  supper-getting;  the  other, 
reahzing  that  Jesus'  stay  was  short  and  that 
there  were  many  things  to  ask  about  the  mean- 
ing of  hfe,  sat  at  his  feet  and  communed  with 
him.  Martha  complained  because  her  sister 
did  not  help,  and  Jesus  said,  "Martha,  Martha, 
thou  art  anxious  and  troubled  about  many 
things:  but  one  thing  is  needful:  for  Mary 
hath  chosen  the  good  part,  which  shall  not  be 
taken  away  from  her."  Two  views  of  life  are 
here  presented  to  Jesus — a  receptive  idealism 
and  a  practical  realism — and  he  is  asked  to 
choose.  The  other  day  Kipling  wrote  his 
poem  entitled  "The  Sons  of  Martha,"  in  eulogy 
of  the  latter  view  of  life.  The  whole  poem  is 
replete  with  that  fallacy  that  is  too  much 
characteristic  of  our  age.  For  the  ultimate 
question  of  life  is  Mary's  question:  how  we 
can  make  firm  its  spiritual  values.  This  is 
the  end  for  which  humanity  exists.  This  is 
the  road  to  our  highest  realization.  To  be 
able  to  say  with  Madame  Guy  on: 

"I  love  thee.  Lord,  but  all  the  love  is  thine, 
For  by  thy  life  I  live. 
I  am  as  nothing,  and  rejoice  to  be 
Emptied,  and  lost,  and  swallowed  up  in  thee." 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  REALITY  OF  THE  UNSEEN 

Our  view  of  being  is  fundamental.  It 
determines  the  character  of  our  thought,  the 
general  direction  of  activity,  and  therefore  the 
ultimate  issue  of  life. 

At  first  suggestion  this  statement  may  ap- 
pear unwarranted.  Among  the  factors  that 
determine  life  we  are  not  accustomed  to  place 
a  man's  philosophy,  much  less  do  we  make  it 
essential.  Men  who  have  won  certain  definite 
conceptions  of  reality  are  no  doubt  greatly 
influenced  by  the  beliefs  which  these  concep- 
tions support,  but  their  number  is  small  as 
compared  with  the  multitude  who  have  never 
even  thought  of  being  as  such. 

We  forget,  however,  that  a  belief  need  not 
come  up  to  the  level  of  clear  understanding  to 
become  effective.  Few  beliefs  of  the  common 
man  are  formally  understood.  They  grow  up 
in  his  life  like  the  faculty  of  perception:  need 
calls  them  forth  and  experience  gives  them 
form,  but  the  process  of  growth  and  the  result 
thus  attained  are  largely  unnoticed.  A  man 
may  possess  beliefs  that  are  undefined,  even 

22 


THE  REALITY  OF  THE  UNSEEN  ^3 

unrecognized,  but  which  nevertheless  lend  color 
to  his  every  thought  and  deed.  Whether  we 
will  it  or  not,  we  must  build  upon  some  philos- 
ophy of  life.  Thought  must  have  a  basis  in 
conception;  action  must  have  some  principle 
of  coordination.  There  are  also  instincts  and 
aspirations  native  to  life,  upon  whose  satis- 
faction happiness  depends,  which  involve  a 
man's  view  of  being. 

This  demand  for  a  philosophy  of  life  is 
increased  by  reason  of  the  transient  nature 
of  human  affairs.  If  we  dwell  alone  in  the 
world  of  things — that  is,  in  the  world  as  it 
reports  itself  to  us — we  can  find  there  nothing 
that  abides.  Life  moves  on  amid  shifting 
scenes,  in  which  the  very  thread  of  its  own 
experience  is  changing.  Without  some  inner 
principle  to  bind  together  these  changing  expe- 
riences and  make  them  one — one  both  in 
themselves  and  with  the  world — man's  existence 
is  weighed  down  by  the  sense  of  insecurity 
and  all  its  more  sacred  values  are  robbed  of 
meaning.  Is  there  no  permanence  in  things 
— no  solid  ground  upon  which  man  may  plant 
his  foot?  In  the  changing  life  of  phenomena 
is  there  nothing  that  abides?  These  questions 
press  upon  us  and  will  not  down.  Upon  the 
answer  we  give  to  them  hangs  the  worth  of 
life's  meaning;  without  an  answer,  the  impulse 


24  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

is  gone  that  might  lead  us  to  make  out  of 
this  changing  world  something  great  and  good. 


In  general,  two  views  of  reality  have  been 
held  by  the  thinking  world.  One,  the  ma- 
terialistic view.  This  regards  the  external 
world  as  primary.  What  can  be  perceived 
by  the  five  senses  and  investigated  it  calls  the 
real.  These  outward  things  are  the  facts,  they 
are  the  realities.  The  inner  life  of  conscious- 
ness is  interpreted  in  terms  of  the  outer  world, 
and  finds  its  suflScient  explanation  as  a  result 
of  physical  processes. 

This  view  has  always  been  popular,  for  to 
most  of  us  the  outer  world  seems  the  solid 
and  real.  It  appears  to  be  supported  by  the 
most  tangible  and  obvious  experiences  of  hu- 
man life.  Yet,  closely  examined,  materialism 
is  confronted  by  serious  difficulty.  This  outer 
world  can  be  known  to  us  only  by  the  senses, 
and  we  have  no  possible  assurance  that  they 
report  reality — things  as  they  are.  Indeed, 
we  know  that  very  often  they  deceive  us,  that 
they  report  things  as  we  have  reason  to  believe 
they  are  not.  It  may  be  that  Lotze's  claim 
that  all  perception  of  the  external  world  is  a 
deception,  is  extreme.  Yet  when  we  take  into 
account   the   degree   to  which   the  perception 


THE  REALITY  OF  THE  UNSEEN  25 

of  spatial  objects  is  a  mental  synthesis,  and 
is  determined  not  by  the  "thing"  itself,  but 
by  the  habit  of  the  mind,  the  ground  for  this 
claim  becomes  evident.  Errors  of  percep- 
tion are  innumerable.  One  or  two  simple 
instances  will  call  this  to  attention.  You  sit 
in  a  stationary  railway  carriage,  while  another 
train  alongside  begins  to  move.  Immediately 
you  decide  that  your  train  is  moving  and 
that  the  other  is  still,  and  only  discover  the 
mistake  by  reference  to  your  sense  of  vibration 
or  to  some  familiar  stationary  object.  Your 
eye  tells  you  that  the  afternoon  sun  sinking 
toward  the  west  is  moving;  but  as  a  matter 
of  fact  we  are  taught  to  believe  that  the  sun 
is  the  great  fixed  central  hub  and  that  it  is 
ourselves  that  move.  There  are  cases,  then, 
when  certain  of  our  senses  deceive  us,  but 
being  able  to  check  up  the  impression  with 
the  other  senses  we  call  this  an  illusion.  May 
there  not  be  cases  where  our  senses  unite  in 
deceiving  us,  but  since  most  people's  senses 
are  like  ours  and  they  confirm  our  impression, 
we  agree  to  call  what  is  merely  a  great  sensible 
illusion  reality.'^  At  least  there  is  room  for 
grave  doubt  as  to  the  sufficiency  of  the  ma- 
terialistic position. 

Over   against   materialism   is   the   spiritual- 
istic view.     This  regards  the  spirit  in  man  as 


S6         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

the  great  reality.  Spirit  is  the  permanent, 
the  enduring,  it  is  the  true  hfe.  Of  this  life 
man's  body  is  merely  an  instrument  which 
may  at  any  time  be  thrown  away.  All  that 
comes  to  us  through  the  senses  from  the  out- 
side world  is  changing  and  temporal.  Back 
of  this  too  is  a  spiritual  life  and  meaning  which 
is  forever  unfolding  itself.  This  is  the  reahty 
— the  abiding  amid  the  changes  of  time. 

It  would  be  profitless  here  to  enter  into  an 
exhaustive  criticism  of  these  two  methods  of 
interpretation.  It  is  a  sufficient  statement 
that  the  great  minds  in  every  age,  who  have 
sought  an  answer  to  the  deeper  demands  of 
life,  have  found  themselves  driven  to  the 
spiritualistic  position.  They  have  been  forced 
to  believe  that  the  seen  is  the  creation  of  the 
unseen,  that  the  material  world  is  the  product 
of  thought,  that  mind,  not  matter,  is  the  great 
reality. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  all  necessarily,  though 
perhaps  unconsciously,  accept  this  view  as  a 
working  basis  of  life.  For  instance,  we  call 
the  structure  in  which  we  worship  on  the  Sab- 
bath a  church,  by  which  we  mean,  what.^ 
Materials.^  No!  A  church  is  the  realized 
ideal  of  some  architect,  saturated  with  the 
most  sacred  sentiments  of  some  worshiping 
congregation.     Away  yonder  among  the  hills 


THE  REALITY  OF  THE  UNSEEN  27 

is  a  place  you  call  home  It  is  only  a  modest 
cottage  built  of  the  humblest  materials,  but 
you  never  think  of  it  without  sentiment,  and 
you  travel  back  there  every  summer  to  linger 
near  it.  From  the  standpoint  of  materials  it 
is  worthless;  but  as  you  sit  upon  its  step 
some  vacation  morn  that  step  and  door  and 
mantel  are  vocal  of  souls  and  experiences  past 
and  gone.  The  fact  is  we  live  in  a  world  of 
invisibles,  a  world  of  homes  and  churches  and 
schools,  of  ideals  embodied  and  ideas  visualized. 

In  like  manner  as  we  look  out  thoughtfully 
upon  nature  there  comes  to  us  a  sense  that 
this  too  is  full  of  meaning.  Its  objects  are 
symbols.  In  it  is  a  soul  that  speaks  to  our 
soul.  The  hill  and  vale,  the  stream  and  field, 
are  the  characters  of  an  eternal  language. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  universe  as  a  whole. 
This  too  is  the  embodiment  of  thought.  The 
very  fact  that  we  can  interpret  it  argues  a 
reason  immanent  in  it  that  answers  to  our 
own,  for  only  that  which  proceeds  from  thought 
can  be  interpreted  by  thought. 

We  must  estimate  the  n;ieaning  of  things  not 
in  terms  of  the  seen  but  of  the  unseen.  This 
does  not  mean  that  we  are  to  despise  these 
earthly  forms.  The  Oriental  has  taught  his 
fellows  that  this  world  revealed  to  the  senses 
is  simply  a  mirage,  and  therefore  it  is  to  be 


^8  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

ignored.  A  mirage  is  a  mere  semblance,  but 
this  is  not  our  world.  What  we  see  and  hear 
and  feel  is  the  temporal  form  of  reality;  it  is 
the  eternal  subjected  to  creature  use.  The 
Christian  ascetic  withdrew  from  the  world 
and  hoped  to  enter  into  reality  by  thinking 
himself  away  from  contact  with  the  things 
of  time.  He  failed  of  his  aim  because  he  for- 
got that  there  are  no  other  characters  than 
these  earthly  forms  from  which  we  can  learn 
the  meaning  of  reality,  no  other  way-marks 
by  means  of  which  we  can  find  the  eternal. 

II 

This  principle  of  interpretation  applies  not 
only  to  things  but  to  events.  The  great  world 
of  events,  like  the  great  world  of  things,  has 
an  inner  meaning  which  is  the  abiding  reality 
amid  the  changes  of  circumstance. 

There  are  two  ways  to  read  history,  just  as 
there  are  two  ways  to  view  reality.  It  may 
be  considered  as  a  mere  succession  of  happen- 
ings, each  event  sufficient  unto  itself,  each 
page  we  turn  with  a  relation  only  of  sequence 
to  that  which  precedes.  China  creeping  out  of 
the  distant  past;  Egypt  sitting  like  a  sphinx 
on  the  bank  of  her  river;  Greece,  Rome,  the 
Goths,  the  Saxons — they  all  follow  each  other 
in  a  wandering  aimless  manner.     But  there  is 


THE  REALITY  OF  THE  UNSEEN  29 

another  way:  that  expressed  by  Hegel  when 
he  says  that  history  is  "the  unfolding  of 
spiritual  being  in  time."  There  is  a  purpose 
in  it  all  which  if  understood  would  account 
for  each  step  in  the  process.  History  is  not 
a  mere  succession  of  events,  it  is  the  pro- 
gressive unfolding  of  the  divine  idea;  its  inner 
meaning  is  spiritual.  These  things  we  call 
events  are  symbols — symbols  of  a  hidden  life, 
just  as  the  bud  and  leaf  are  symbols  of  growth. 
In  their  good  time  they  appear,  for  their  brief 
day  they  endure,  as  the  forms  in  time  of  an 
ever-growing,  ever-changing  life.  They  have 
value,  not  because  of  their  temporal  form,  nor, 
as  we  are  wont  to  think,  because  they  bring 
pain  or  pleasure  to  the  race;  their  meaning 
lies  in  this,  that  they  are  the  birth-throes  by 
which  the  eternal  spirit  goes  on  to  higher 
forms  of  manifestation. 

Out  of  the  mists  of  the  distant  past  man 
emerges  with  the  marks  of  the  jungle  upon 
him.  For  many  centuries  his  path  is  dark 
and  obscure,  and  when  occasionally  he  appears 
before  us  he  is  clothed  with  deeds  of  bar- 
barism. Then  a  light  breaks  upon  the  path, 
at  first  dim  and  scattered,  but  growing  in 
depth  and  clearness.  Certain  religious  beliefs 
appear,  with  corresponding  moral  conceptions 
that   lend   direction    to    the   course   and   give 


30  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

character  to  the  story.  Then  Jesus  Christ 
steps  out  upon  the  scene  with  the  message  of 
a  new  Hfe.  At  first  he  touches  a  httle  group 
of  followers,  the  circle  of  his  influence  widens, 
the  handful  grows  into  an  army  that  sets  out 
to  win  the  world.  Broken  and  persecuted,  they 
persevere  in  their  purpose,  coining  defeat 
into  courage;  the  ranks  increase,  the  borders 
widen,  and  they  enter  the  twentieth  century 
with  the  slogan,  "The  world  for  Christ  in  this 
generation."  Sometimes  the  army  has  been 
driven  back,  sometimes  it  has  wandered  from 
the  path,  but  the  course  has  been  steadily 
forward,  and,  looking  back  over  it  all,  we  see 
that  behind  the  world  of  events  is  a  soul  of 
things  that  gives  meaning  to  it  all. 

We  have  not  discovered  the  key  to  human 
history  until  we  have  learned  that  all  events 
are  essentially  spiritual.  Many  an  incident 
which  to  its  own  day  was  a  mere  catastrophe 
has  been  found  by  the  centuries  following  to 
be  the  revelation  of  some  wondrous  truth  to 
the  hearts  of  men.  It  is  not  what  attracts 
the  attention  of  the  men  of  any  age  that 
endures — wealth,  fame,  material  success;  these 
soon  pass  away  and  are  gone.  But  the  thoughts 
that  are  begotten,  and  the  ideals  that  are 
cherished  in  the  hearts  of  the  great  men  of 
the  age,  for  which   their  lives  are  a  sacrifice. 


THE  REALITY  OF  THE  UNSEEN     31 

these  abide.  The  Roman  Empire  failed  to 
see  anything  sublime  in  the  teaching  of  Paul. 
The  political  rulers  could  not  believe  that  he 
had  anything  to  do  with  the  destinies  of  their 
world.  They  made  the  mistake  common  to 
men  of  the  world  of  thinking  that  the  things 
they  saw  were  the  real  things.  Gone  are  the 
armies,  cities,  and  palaces  of  Paul's  day;  but 
his  ideals  still  live,  registered  in  the  institu- 
tions of  our  Christian  civilization.  Dante's 
generation  drove  him  out  a  fugitive  on  the 
hillsides.  They  left  him  there.  The  storm  beat 
on  him.  In  the  darkness  his  soul  sobbed  out 
its  sorrow.  But  one  day  Carlyle  rises  up  to 
tell  the  world  that  "ten  silent  centuries  found 
voice  in  Dante."  The  world  is  wiser  than  it 
seems.  As  time  rolls  round  it  remembers 
only  the  things  of  worth.  If  we  blind  our- 
selves to  the  spiritual  meaning  of  our  own 
day,  remember,  the  generations  that  come  will 
see  that  day  only  in  terms  of  its  spiritual 
meaning.  The  first  century  sent  Jesus  Christ 
to  the  cross,  and  bowed  down  before  Pilate; 
the  twentieth  century  has  nothing  but  disdain 
for  Pilate,  while  it  places  Christ  upon  a  throne. 
To-day  burns  John  Huss  at  the  stake,  to- 
morrow does  honor  to  his  memory.  This  gen- 
eration erects  a  monument  to  Garibaldi,  whom 
the    last    generation    made    a    fugitive    from 


32  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

justice.  The  world  is  wiser  than  we  think, 
and  out  of  the  field  of  the  centuries  it  har- 
vests only  the  things  that  abide. 

Ill 

A  spiritualistic  interpretation  of  history  alone 
provides  a  satisfactory  basis  for  an  under- 
standing of  the  many  puzzles  of  life. 

1.  It  furnishes  a  key  to  unlock  the  mystery 
of  affliction.  Life  is  a  warfare,  full  of  blinding 
sorrows  and  the  wounding  of  our  noblest 
sensibilities.  There  is  no  path  that  is  not 
crossed  by  mishap,  no  burden  that  does  not 
gall  the  shoulder,  no  friendship  that  is  not 
made  to  be  broken.  The  cause  of  pleasure  is 
also  the  cause  of  pain;  our  source  of  hope  is 
our  reason  for  despair.  One  might  expect 
that  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  life  we  should 
rid  ourselves  of  its  afflictions;  but,  alas!  the 
higher  we  climb  the  more  sensible  we  are  to 
pain.  With  the  deepening  of  civilization  comes 
the  deepening  of  our  soul's  sensibilities.  This 
thought  of  itself  tends  to  fill  one  with  despair. 
But  if  we  can  believe  that  there  is  a  hidden 
worth  in  these  experiences,  and  a  purpose 
that  is  beneficent,  while  they  appear  none 
the  less  harsh,  they  become  at  least  more 
reasonable. 

The  problem  of  the  world's  suffering  is  al- 


THE  REALITY  OF  THE  UNSEEN     33 

ways  an  enigma,  but  one  thing  is  clear.  What- 
ever be  the  justification,  out  of  the  strife  and 
struggle  come  the  treasures  of  the  ages.  Come 
back  with  me  to  the  fourteenth  century  in 
England.  A  dark  cloud  gathers  in  the  east 
and  death  springs  up  from  the  ground.  Men 
die,  women  and  children  die;  the  baron  in 
the  castle,  the  monk  in  the  abbey,  the  villein 
on  the  farm,  all  die.  The  terror  is  called  the 
black  death.  In  some  towns  not  a  single  man 
is  left.  Then  the  springtime  comes,  and  the 
summer  sun  with  healing  in  his  wings;  and 
health  returns;  but  the  half  of  England  is 
gone.  Terrible!  yes;  but  out  of  that  stream 
of  death  came  a  new  England.  The  feudal 
system  with  its  mailed  hand  of  bondage  was 
doomed.  The  barons  were  dead;  there  was 
so  much  to  do  and  there  were  so  few  to  do  it 
that  the  laborer  began  to  go  where  he  wished 
and  to  demand  a  fair  wage  for  his  work.  Thirty 
years  later  came  the  uprising  that  made  the 
English  peasant  the  freest  man  of  his  class 
in  the  world. 

And  so  it  is  in  our  lives.  Many  experiences 
bear  the  aspect  of  tragedy,  and  their  curse  is 
unmitigated  unless  they  can  be  made  to  serve 
a  spiritual  end. 

2.  It  gives  a  point  of  view  from  which  to 
understand  death.     Life  at  best  is  a  process 


34.  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

of  decay.  While  the  history  of  man  has  been 
marked  by  conquest  over  opposition  and 
diflSculty,  and  the  banishment  of  ignorance 
and  fear,  one  enemy  has  mocked  his  genius 
and  defied  his  rule.  That  enemy  is  the  power 
of  dissolution.  He  builds,  and  it  tears  down. 
It  sends  its  rust  to  eat  up  his  handiwork; 
its  mold  to  destroy  his  libraries;  it  taxes  his 
health  and  faculties  until  at  last  "the  silver 
cord  be  loosed,  or  the  golden  bowl  be  broken, 
or  the  pitcher  be  broken  at  the  fountain,  or 
the  wheel  broken  at  the  cistern;  and  the  dust 
return  to  the  earth  as  it  was." 

This  fact  has  been  sufficient  to  fill  even  the 
heart  of  the  strong  man  with  despair.  Fall- 
ing on  death  at  seventy-two,  Confucius,  the 
great  sage  of  the  East,  cried  out,  "The  great 
mountain  must  crumble,  the  strong  beam  must 
break,  and  the  wise  man  wither  away  like  a 
plant."  "Man  giveth  up  the  ghost  and  where 
is  he?"  was  the  sad  refrain  of  the  Hebrew 
prophet.  And  indeed,  if  there  is  no  ground 
for  believing  that  back  of  this  decaying  form 
there  is  an  abiding  spirit,  this  despair  is  reason- 
able. The  only  trustworthy  optimism  grows 
out  of  an  ability  to  set  time  over  against 
eternity,  the  seen  over  against  the  unseen, 
with  the  promise  of  an  inheritance  beyond. 
Then  death  is  not  going  out,  it  is  going  home. 


THE  REALITY  OF  THE  UNSEEN  35 

It  is  the  spirit  coming  to  its  own.  It  is  break- 
ing through  the  veil  into  the  realm  of  the 
unseen,  into  the  world  of  eternal  things. 

Hall  Caine  is  a  great  prophet  of  the  soul. 
Have  you  read  his  story  of  Lord  Nuneham 
in  The  White  Prophet?  Ruling  with  the  hand 
of  a  tyrant,  Nuneham  had  succeeded  in  bring- 
ing order  out  of  chaos,  and  establishing  a 
measure  of  prosperity  in  the  land  of  the  Nile. 
But  as  he  had  grown  old  the  people  had  grown 
restless,  and  his  empire  was  crumbling. 
Through  all  these  years  his  wife,  a  choice 
spirit,  had  busied  herself  with  those  duties 
and  devotions  that  lend  culture  to  the  deeper 
life.  Then  came  the  day  when  the  Egyptian 
nurse  knocked  at  the  door  to  call  Nuneham 
upstairs  to  close  his  wife's  eyes  in  death.  He 
looked  upon  her  face  radiant  with  celestial 
hope,  he  listened  to  her  final  reaflSrmation  of 
her  faith,  then  returning  to  his  study  he 
seated  himself  in  meditation.  Memory  called 
the  roll  of  friends  and  foes  come  and  gone. 
He  saw  the  vision  of  his  youth  fading  away 
just  as  its  fulfillment  was  at  hand,  and  search- 
ing questions  came  to  him.  "Can  it  be  possi- 
ble," he  said,  "that  I  have  been  occupying 
myself,  after  all,  with  the  mere  semblance  of 
things,  which  we  call  by  the  great  names, 
civilization    and    progress,   while   that   simple 


36         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

soul   upstairs   has   been   grasping   the   eternal 
realities?"^ 

The  years  roll  by,  the  wheel  turns  round, 
and  ever  the  sand  runs  out.  In  April  the 
trees  clothe  themselves  with  leaves;  only  a 
few  weeks,  they  fall  and  are  gone.  So  is  it 
with  the  generations  of  men.  But  the  record 
of  truth  and  goodness  remains;  God's  eternal 
purpose  abides.  The  task  of  our  lives  is  to 
make  the  unseen  real.  Wherever  a  life  of 
virtue  is  manifest  in  mortal  flesh,  wherever 
men  and  women  adorn  themselves  with  spir- 
itual graces  and  spend  themselves  for  the 
common  good,  there  the  unseen  becomes  real. 
And  he  who  sets  himself  to  this  task  will  find 
his  inner  life  ever  renewed,  so  that,  though  he 
die  daily,  yet  he  shall  be  able  to  say,  "I  faint 
not." 


1  Hall  Caine,  The  White  Prophet.    New  York,  D.  Appleton  &  Company. 
1909. 


CHAPTER  III 

LIFE'S  DEMAND  FOR  A  RELIGION 

There  is  nothing  more  characteristically 
human  than  the  religious  impulse,  yet,  as  often 
occurs,  that  which  is  most  common  in  expe- 
rience is  most  difficult  to  explain.  Until  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  religion  was 
viewed  as  an  incidental  feature  in  human  life, 
and  students  attributed  its  origin  to  sources 
wholly  casual.  Fear  made  the  gods;  religion 
is  an  invention  of  priests;  religion  is  a  projec- 
tion of  the  tendency  in  early  man  to  personify 
the  objects  of  nature;  the  worship  of  ancestors 
is  the  mother  of  religion.  These  are  some  of 
the  answers  to  the  quest  after  the  source  of 
those  forms  of  faith  that  constitute  the  record 
of  the  religious  history  of  the  race. 

It  is  perhaps  the  chief  service  of  the  science 
of  religion  that  it  has  exposed  the  fallacy  of 
this  view.  Instead  of  the  religious  impulse 
being  incidental  to  life,  it  is  found  to  be  funda- 
mental. Man's  mental  structure  is  essentially 
religious.  From  the  beginning  of  human  his- 
tory there  is  evidence  of  a  principle  which 
has  given  birth  to  all  forms  of  religious  ex- 
37 


38  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

pression,    and    which    constitutes    a    bond    of 
unity  deeper  than  all  racial  distinctions. 

In  general,  this  impulse  may  be  defined  as 
a  sense  of  need,  a  longing  after  something. 
"Just  at  the  time  when  the  human  race  was 
beginning  to  come  upon  the  scene,"  says  John 
Fiske,  speaking  as  an  evolutionist,  "there 
came  into  the  human  mind  the  beginnings  of 
a  groping  after  something  that  lies  outside 
and  beyond  the  world  of  sense." ^  Man  as 
man  is  conscious  of  the  need  of  protection  and 
direction,  of  cleansing  from  uncleanness,  of 
power  beyond  his  own  strength.  Through  a 
multiplicity  of  forms,  in  different  ages  and 
races,  this  consciousness  has  sought  expression, 
until  at  last  it  finds  utterance  in  an  insistent 
demand  for  God.  Fear,  ancestor  worship,  the 
personification  of  the  objects  of  nature,  repre- 
sent the  method  by  which  man  has  blindly 
sought  an  answer  to  life's  great  demand;  but 
always,  back  of  all,  is  this  innate  longing  for 
higher  communion.  This  longing  disturbs  the 
soul  from  the  first  dawn  of  consciousness.  It 
is  deeper  rooted  than  any  other  want.  It  is 
more  insistent  than  any  other  desire.  Years 
cannot  silence  it.  Our  desires  change  as  the 
years  pass  by.    Youth  loves  pleasure;  manhood. 


'John  Fiske,  A  Century  of  Science,  p.  114.     Boston,  Houghton  Mifflin 
Company.     1899. 


DEMAND  FOR  A  RELIGION  39 

achievement;  old  age,  rest.  But  ever  present, 
behind  all  our  desires  is  this  hereditary  want, 
an  endless  aspiration,  a  longing  for  something 
beyond,  a  discontent  with  life  as  it  is  and  a 
reaching  out  toward  a  good  that  is  un- 
defined. 

I 

Whence  comes  this  longing?  The  answer  to 
this  question  will  not  only  throw  light  upon 
man's  nature;  it  will  also  enable  us  to  under- 
stand some  of  the  more  permanent  beliefs 
that  have  influenced  his  career. 

1.  It  is  a  necessary  result  of  our  being.  We 
are  finite  creatures,  and  consciously  so,  and 
therefore  find  life  inadequate  in  itself.  From 
whatever  standpoint  human  existence  is  viewed, 
it  is  found  to  be  subject  to  limitation;  it  stands 
in  relations  of  dependence  to  a  larger  life. 
These  relations  would  not  trouble  us,  we  should 
adjust  ourselves  instinctively  to  the  condition 
in  which  we  are,  were  it  not  that  consciousness 
is  ever  bringing  them  to  light.  Consciousness, 
as  we  know  it,  not  only  performs  its  function, 
but  acquires  its  nature  through  reference  to  a 
larger  whole.  Beneath  and  beyond  all  con- 
sciousness of  finite  things,  all  subjective  feel- 
ings and  interests,  there  is  always  this  wider 
reference  which  constitutes  the  significance  of 


40         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

each.  It  is  the  genius  of  consciousness,  not 
that  the  soul  is  moved  by  desires,  nor  appealed 
to  by  another,  but  that  it  transcends  itself 
and  the  other,  and  gathers  both  up  in  an  all- 
embracing  whole. 

The  knowledge  of  any  object  lies  in  the 
fact  of  its  limitation.  Any  object  of  knowl- 
edge derives  its  meaning  not  from  itself  but 
as  a  part  of  a  larger  whole.  Meaning  or  pur- 
pose is  always  a  term  of  relation.  It  pre- 
supposes not  only  knowing  a  subject,  but  also 
a  wider  range  of  meaning  upon  which  its 
character  depends.  To  define  an  object  is 
simply  to  set  certain  definite  limits  upon  the 
universe  to  which  it  belongs.  Like  the  horizon, 
our  definition  is  a  boundary;  it  points  within 
and  it  points  beyond.  Nay,  more — the  inner 
reference  is  dependent  upon  the  outer  and 
exists  because  of  it.  This  object  before  me 
is  a  book.  A  book  is  a  printed  record  of  facts. 
What  facts  .'^  Facts  of  history,  of  nature. 
Thus  every  fact  of  knowledge  is  a  questioner 
leading  us  outward  toward  the  boundless 
circle  of  the  whole.  Here  we  get  the  force  of 
Tennyson's  words  when  he  wrote: 

"Flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 
I  pluck  you  out  of  the  crannies, 
I  hold  you  here,  root  and  all,  in  my  hand. 
Little  flower — but  if  I  could  understand 


DEMAND  FOR  A  RELIGION  41 

What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is."^ 

The  self,  the  I,  the  fundamental  principle  of 
human  experience,  is  always  incomplete.  It 
is  not  only  capable  of  development  in  and  of 
itself;  it  draws  from  and  reaches  toward 
another  life  which  forms  its  essential  ground 
and  constitutes  its  source  of  meaning.  A  full 
defense  of  this  statement  would  be  beyond 
the  range  of  these  pages.  I  appeal  not  only 
to  religion  but  to  philosophy  as  witness.  I 
am  not  unaware  that  there  is  a  group  of 
philosophers  who  deny  what  I  say.  Their 
voice  is  but  a  whisper  in  the  great  chorus  of 
those  with  whom  I  am  in  accord.  For  the 
oldest  Hindu  philosophy  as  well  as  the  latest 
European  idealism  agree  in  the  claim  that 
the  individual  is  the  sharer  in  a  self-conscious- 
ness which  includes  all  individuals.  This 
claim  constitutes  the  eternal  foundation  of 
religion.  The  purpose  of  religion  has  always 
been  to  discover  the  nature  of  this  universal 
consciousness  and  relate  man's  life  to  it  in 
the  most  helpful  way. 

All  the  deeper  problems  of  our  lives  as 
individuals  are  set  for  us  by  this  relation  to 

^The  relation  of  the  finite  to  the  infinite  has  been  presented  by  Herbert 
Spencer  in  First  Principles,  and  Max  Miiller  in  Natural  Religion.  A  care- 
ful consideration  of  these  views  is  given  by  Edward  Caird  in  The  Evolu- 
tion of  Religion,  vol.  i,  lecture  4. 


42  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

a  larger  life.  Every  such  problem  is  a  form 
of  unrest,  and  life's  unrest,  so  varied  in  ex- 
pression, has  its  source  in  one  central  want. 
Doubt  and  perplexity,  sorrow  and  care,  all  the 
disappointments  that  harass  our  days,  are,  as 
Hegel  put  it,  "obstructions  of  finitude."  Not 
only  so,  but  the  struggle  and  striving,  that  go 
under  the  names  "ambition,"  "industry,"  "as- 
piration,** and  constitute  so  great  a  part  of 
human  enterprise,  are  prompted  by  this  death- 
less yearning  for  fuller  experience.  The  soul 
is  never  satisfied  with  its  present  attainment. 
Whatever  be  its  estate,  the  broadening  horizon 
of  the  unattained  is  a  constant  allurement  in 
the  presence  of  which  every  possession  is 
robbed  of  its  charm.  This  fact  has  been  given 
powerful  statement  in  the  familiar  passage  of 
Thomas  Carlyle.^  "Will  the  whole  finance- 
ministers  and  upholsterers  and  confectioners  of 
modern  Europe  undertake,  in  joint-stock  com- 
pany, to  make  one  shoeblack  happy?  They 
cannot  accomplish  it  above  an  hour  or  two; 
for  the  shoeblack  also  has  a  soul,  quite  other 
than  his  stomach,  and  would  require,  if  you 
consider  it,  for  his  permanent  satisfaction  and 
saturation,  simply  this  allotment,  no  more,  and 
no  less:  God's  infinite  universe  altogether  to 
himself,    therein   to   enjoy   infinitely,   and   fill 

^SartOT  Resartua,  book  ii,  chap.  ix. 


DEMAND  FOR  A  RELIGION  43 

every  wish  as  fast  as  it  rose.  .  .  .  Try  him  with 
half  a  universe,  half  of  an  omnipotence,  he 
sets  to  quarreling  with  the  proprietor  of  the 
other  half,  and  declares  himself  the  most  mal- 
treated of  men.  Always  there  is  a  black  spot 
in  our  sunshine;  it  is  even,  as  I  said,  the  shadow 
of  ourselves." 

2.  This  longing  comes  not  only  because  we 
are  finite  beings,  but  because  we  are  moral 
beings.  We  are  not  only  surrounded  by  a 
larger  life  and  a  larger  good  of  which  we  form 
a  part,  but  we  are  bound  to  that  larger  life 
by  ties  of  obligation,  and  in  the  presence  of 
that  larger  good  a  feeling  of  self-accusation 
haunts  the  soul.  It  is  no  mere  trifle  of  expe- 
rience that  the  path  of  man  is  clouded  by  a 
sense  of  un worthiness.  This  too  belongs  to 
the  very  nature  of  man's  being. 

If  man  could  be  satisfied  with  what  he  is, 
life  would  be  a  comparatively  easy  aflPair.  But 
this  is  not  the  case.  Over  against  what  he  is 
hovers  a  sense  of  what  he  ought  to  be,  filling 
him  with  an  inextinguishable  longing  for  an 
unrealized  good,  and  making  his  present  lot 
unsatisfactory.  This  opposition  in  man's  life 
may  not  be  sharply  defined  in  his  earlier  his- 
tory; nevertheless  it  exists;  a  sense  of  ought- 
ness  is  never  absent  from  human  nature.  This 
constitutes  man  a  moral  being.     For  what  is 


U  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

morality?  It  is  to  be  lifted  out  of  oneself  and 
made  conscious  of  an  ideal  law  one  is  bound 
to  fulfill  and  at  the  same  time  is  far  from 
fulfilling.  Man  cannot  escape  the  presence  of 
this  law.  Like  the  girding  of  the  infinite,  this 
too  is  the  ever-present  shadow  of  himself. 
Somehow  life  is  under  constant  judgment 
before  the  standard  of  the  ideal.  So  far  as  one 
conscientiously  seeks  the  demands  of  that 
ideal,  his  conduct  is  approved;  wherein  he 
fails,  his  soul  is  shadowed  with  a  sense  of 
un worthiness :  where  the  standard  is  ignored 
there  results  a  feeling  of  condemnation  which 
renders  happiness  impossible.  It  is  not  nec- 
essary here  to  outline  the  evolution  of  this 
standard.  Su£Bce  it  to  say  that  in  whatever 
form  it  appears  it  represents  a  will,  man's 
own,  yet  not  his  own,  to  which  he  owes  obedi- 
ence, and  in  the  presence  of  which  he  is  judged. 
Therefore  a  fundamental  instinct  of  the  human 
soul  is  to  find  atonement  for  moral  failure 
and  win  freedom  from  condemnation  in  the 
presence  of  this  higher  will. 

There  is  a  characteristic  incident  recorded 
in  the  fifth  chapter  of  Luke.  Peter,  James, 
and  John  had  been  out  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee 
fishing  all  night,  and  without  success.  In  the 
morning  they  beached  their  boat  and  were 
washing  their  nets  when  Jesus  appeared  and 


DEMAND  FOR  A  RELIGION  45 

bade  them  push  forth  again  and  let  down  into 
the  sea.  Despite  faikire,  they  obeyed,  and  lo! 
the  nets  were  filled.  But,  the  record  says, 
immediately  Simon  Peter,  falling  down  at 
Jesus'  knees,  cried  out,  "Depart  from  me,  for 
I  am  a  sinful  man,  O  Lord."  Here  is  the  story 
of  fruitless  toil,  and  success  at  the  Master's 
word,  but  in  the  midst  of  all  this  man  bursts 
forth  in  confesssion.  And  so  it  ever  is.  Amid 
the  din  and  roar  of  our  daily  tasks  there  is 
an  undertone  of  self-judgment  of  which  every- 
one is  conscious.  Peter  is  no  exception.  The 
first  man  utters  this  consciousness  in  the  story 
of  the  beginning,  "I  heard  thy  voice  in  the 
garden,  and  I  was  afraid";  and  this  utterance 
is  characteristic  of  every  member  of  the  race. 
God  has  set  up  his  throne  in  the  human  heart, 
and  there  every  man  is  brought  constantly  to 
judgment  before  the  awful  self -revealing  sub- 
limity of  the  eternal. 

3.  With  this  sense  of  un worthiness  there  is 
also  a  sense  of  weakness.  Great  is  the  life 
of  man.  Wondrous  in  his  powers  and  faculties, 
he  is  wondrous  too  in  his  achievement.  The 
story  of  the  triumphs  of  science  during  the 
past  hundred  years  reads  like  the  age  of  myth 
and  fable.  If  we  had  not  seen  with  our  own 
eyes  the  marvelous  gains  that  have  been  made, 
we  should  find  it  hard  to  believe  such  achieve- 


46  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

ments  were  possible.  But  when  one  stands 
face  to  face  with  the  soul's  task  it  is  a  different 
story — a  story  of  struggle  and  defeat,  of  failure 
and  sin.  The  other  day  Alfred  Russel  Wallace 
wrote  his  Social  Environment  and  Moral 
Progress,  in  which  he  maintains  that  while 
the  higher  nature  of  man  has  developed  im- 
measurably in  some  directions,  from  the  stand- 
point of  morals  man  is  to-day  elevated  little 
above  the  earliest  condition  that  history  records. 
We  may  not  agree  with  Wallace's  claim,  but 
at  least  it  causes  us  pause,  that  after  twenty 
centuries  of  Christian  progress  such  a  state- 
ment should  be  made  in  all  seriousness. 

Human  weakness  is  due  both  to  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  hindrance  and  the  altitude  of 
the  goal.  Whatever  be  our  philosophy  of  life, 
one  thing  is  evident :  life  must  make  its  progress 
against  opposition,  and  sometimes  this  opposi- 
tion appears  insurmountable.  As  the  centuries 
have  passed,  man  has  triumphed  over  ignorance 
within  and  various  difficulties  without,  but  he 
is  still,  as  Wallace  said,  a  slave  to  self  and 
passion.  Evil  habit  binds  its  chain  about  him 
and  robs  him  of  his  freedom.  In  despair  he 
cries  out,  as  one  did  long  ago,  "'O  wretched 
man  that  I  am;  who  shall  dehver  me  from 
the  body  of  this  death?"  Then,  too,  the  goal 
— this  seems  disproportionate  to  man's  ability. 


DEMAND  FOR  A  RELIGION  47 

The  caged  eagle  knows  that  if  his  prison  door 
is  opened,  he  can  spread  his  wings  and  rise 
into  the  empyrean.  His  bondage  is  an  im- 
posed bondage.  Man  is  not  caged,  he  is  free. 
He  sees  the  height,  but  his  wings  are  unde- 
veloped, or  his  wings  are  broken.  How  shall 
he  rise  with  an  eaglet's  wing?  Who  will  help 
his  feeble  soarings  to  attain  the  height.?  Living 
in  a  world  full  of  uncleanness,  life  demands  of 
us  purity — and  who  can  be  pure.^^  Your  outer 
acts  are  clean — has  no  base  thought  or  pas- 
sion been  harbored  in  your  soul?  The  deeper 
we  go  into  life,  the  more  keenly  we  realize  the 
magnitude  of  the  soul's  task,  and  with  that 
realization  there  is  begotten  an  endless  longing 
for  help  from  the  beyond. 

4.  Then  there  are  those  things  we  call  evils, 
that  afflict  mankind  with  endless  misery,  and 
are  so  difficult  to  understand.  These  too 
constitute  a  perennial  demand  for  God. 

It  would  be  far  from  me  to  seek  to  minimize 
the  joyousness  of  human  life.  It  is  good  to 
live  and  breathe,  to  work  and  get  tired,  to 
sleep  and  rest.  Our  faculties  are  attuned  to 
a  million  sights  and  sounds  that  fill  the  soul 
with  music.  The  necessary  functions  of  life 
all  have  their  pleasure-tone.  Yet  there  is 
another  side  to  the  picture.  One  may  under- 
estimate the  joyousness  of  life,  but  he  is  blind 


48  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

indeed  who  fails  to  recognize  that  life  is  full 
of  trouble  and  care,  anguish  and  pain,  heart 
ache  and  bitterness.  The  king  of  old  wore 
sackcloth  imder  his  purple,  and  every  man 
wears  his  sackcloth.  Behind  the  smile  and 
the  cheery  word  there  is  often  the  noiseless 
pain  of  a  hidden  burden.  What  plans  we  have 
made,  what  hopes  we  have  cherished,  what 
friends  we  have  had! — and  now  the  plans 
have  failed,  the  hopes  are  blighted,  the  friends 
are  gone.  And  so,  says  Bossuet,  the  famous 
preacher  at  the  court  of  Louis  XIV,  "We 
arrive  at  last  at  the  tomb  dragging  after  us 
the  long  chain  of  our  broken  hopes."  Life 
is  a  battlefield  with  no  truce  possible  in  the 
fight.  Whether  the  army  retreat  or  go  forward, 
the  way  is  strewn  with  wounded  heroes,  de- 
serted pennons,  and  men  who  have  crawled 
away  into  the  quiet  to  die.  O  the  pathos  of  it! 
The  Great  War  has  accentuated  for  many 
of  us  the  shadow  side  of  life.^  Every  morning 
there  passes  before  the  face  of  the  sun  a  cloud 
of  gloom,  rising  from  the  battlefields  of  Europe, 
where  the  bravest  and  best  of  our  sons  are 
pouring  out  their  lives  amid  scenes  of  agony, 
hate,  and  slaughter.  Men  meet  upon  the 
streets  with  a  question  in  the  eye — the  diurnal 
question.     Now  and  then  some  anxious  soul 

1  Written  during  the  Great  War. 


DEMAND  FOR  A  RELIGION  49 

trembles  into  words:  "Why  is  this  so?  Why 
must  this  suffering  be?"  From  millions  of 
homes  once  light  and  happy  there  rises  up  the 
silent  wail  of  a  great  sorrow.  With  this  shadow, 
however,  there  has  come  also  a  new  and  deep- 
ening interest  in  spiritual  things.  The  soldier 
in  the  trenches  begins  to  talk  of  God.  The 
essayist,  who  long  ago  dismissed  the  teaching 
of  the  Christian  Church  as  exploded  tradition, 
has  suddenly  become  the  prophet  of  religion. 
Why  this  change?  Amid  the  horror,  wretched- 
ness, and  shame  that  the  war  has  entailed  men 
turn  instinctively,  as  they  have  always  done,  to 
the  great  Unknown  for  consolation  and  hope. 

"The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star. 
Of  the  night  for  the  morrow. 
The  devotion  to  something  afar 
From  the  sphere  of  our  sorrow."* 

II 

What  shall  we  do  with  this  longing?  Shall 
we  stand  here  on  the  shores  of  time,  like 
Enoch  Arden  crying  across  the  empty  waste, 
to  hear  in  answer  only  the  echo  of  our  cry? 
Stifle  it,  says  Matthew  Arnold;  there  is  no  way 
out  of  our  loneliness.  The  universe  is  silent, 
there  is  no  help  outside  ourselves.     We  are 

^SheUey'a  Complete  Poetical  Works,  p.  408.     Boston,  Houghton  Mifflin 
Company.     1901. 


50  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

separated  from  the  beyond  by  an  unfathom- 
able sea  across  which  comes  neither  sign  nor 
sound.  But  if  this  is  true,  then  Hfe  is  a  mock- 
ery. The  noblest  experiences  of  the  soul — 
its  faith,  its  hope,  its  love — become  empty 
impressions  to  which  no  reality  corresponds, 
and  all  our  dearest  aims  are  vain.  George 
John  Romanes,  having  felt  it  his  duty  to 
school  himself  into  an  attitude  of  pure  skep- 
ticism, had  the  candor  to  admit  that  with  his 
"virtual  negation  of  God"  the  universe  for 
him  "lost  its  soul  of  loveliness,"  and  human 
existence  became  a  "lonely  mystery,"  prompt- 
ing within  him  "the  sharpest  pang  of  which 
his  nature  was  susceptible."^ 

Every  religion  must  prove  itself  by  its  abil- 
ity to  answer  the  deepest  cry  of  the  human 
spirit.  If  it  fails  here,  it  fails  everywhere; 
if  it  satisfies  here,  its  existence  is  assured. 
Religion  is  not  primarily  for  intellectual  in- 
struction nor  for  moral  direction.  Secondarily 
it  is  both  of  these.  The  source  of  its  being 
and  the  test  of  its  value  are  to  be  found  in 
its  relation  to  the  few  fundamental  needs  of 
human  life.  These  needs,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  are  spiritual.  They  have  reference  to 
the  relation  of  man  to  the  universe,  the  mean- 


1  Thoughts  On  Religion,  p.  29.     Chicago,  The  Open  Court  Publishing 
Company.     1902. 


DEMAND  FOR  A  RELIGION  51 

ing  of  human  conduct,  and  the  goal  of  human 
destiny.  No  answer  that  is  given  to  them 
can  be  put  in  definite  terms,  for  hfe  at  best  is 
a  matter  of  faith,  and  all  that  can  be  asked  of 
any  religion  is  that  it  shall  present  certain  be- 
liefs which  being  acted  upon  will  satisfy  the  hu- 
man heart  and  help  life  upward  toward  its  best. 
Herein  lies  the  genius  of  Christianity.  Chris- 
tianity is  not  presented  as  a  system  of  philos- 
ophy aiming  at  the  solution  of  theoretical 
problems.  He  who  approaches  it  with  this 
purpose  in  view  may  not  be  wholly  dis- 
appointed; he  has  missed,  however,  the  end 
for  which  it  exists.  Any  religion,  to  be  en- 
during, must  rest  upon  a  rational  basis,  but 
the  test  of  a  religion  will  be  found  in  its  ability 
to  answer  the  deep-felt  needs  that  spring  out 
of  our  human  constitution.  Has  Christianity 
met  this  test.?^  Does  it  answer  the  deepest 
cravings  of  the  human  spirit.?  Does  it  satisfy 
the  highest  aspirations  of  the  human  soul.? 
"My  soul  thirsteth  for  thee,  my  flesh  longeth 
for  thee."  What  has  the  Christian  religion 
to  say  about  the  power  outside  ourselves.? 
What  help  does  it  offer  for  moral  failure? 
What  light  can  it  shed  on  suffering  and  death.? 
We  can  live  without  an  answer  to  the  theoret- 
ical problems  of  life,  but  we  cannot  live  with- 
out an  answer  to  the  vital  problems.     "Show 


m  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us."  Is  there  a 
hand  to  help,  a  heart  to  forgive,  a  fountain  to 
cleanse  the  stain?  "My  soul  thirsteth  for  thee, 
my  flesh  longeth  for  thee."  What  answer 
does  Christianity  give  to  this  cry  of  the  soul.'^ 
God  lives!  As  the  ocean  is  round  about  its 
islands  his  life  flows  round  his  creatures.  This 
is  God's  world,  and  we  are  the  children  of 
his  care.  If  you  doubt  his  goodness,  read  the 
story  of  Jesus.  What  he  was  during  his  brief 
stay  among  men,  God  is.  Every  word  of  his 
was  a  word  of  God — every  deed  was  a  deed 
of  God.  His  love  for  men  was  a  faint  reflec- 
tion of  the  eternal  love.  Then  fear  not!  What 
can  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God.^^  Naught 
but  the  blind  folly  of  our  own  sin,  which  draws 
us  away  from  the  center  of  his  care.  Even 
then  the  solicitations  of  the  eternal  goodness 
are  seeking  to  bring  us  back  and  heal  the 
hurts  that  sin  has  made. 

Christianity  does  not  profess  to  answer  the 
speculative  problems  of  life.  It  offers  an 
answer  to  the  cry  of  the  soul's  need.  And 
what  is  that  answer.'^  In  the  words  of  Ter- 
tullian,  "Faith  knows  no  necessity" — words 
the  truth  of  which  was  certified  by  one  long 
before  Tertullian,  when  he  declared,  "Thou 
hast  been  my  help,  and  under  the  shadow  of 
thy  wings  will  I  rest," 


CHAPTER  IV 

JESUS  CHRIST,  THE  ANSWER  TO 
LIFE'S  SUPREME  DEMAND 

The  life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  being  sub- 
jected to-day  to  the  severest  criticism.  Since 
the  day  Strauss  and  Renan  first  threw  down 
the  gauntlet  to  those  who  claimed  that  the 
sacred  character  of  Jesus'  life  and  work  placed 
them  beyond  the  range  of  critical  examination, 
there  has  arisen  a  long  list  of  Christian  scholars 
who  have  maintained  that  the  obligations  of 
scientific  intelligence  require  that  the  primary 
records  of  Christian  faith  shall  bear  the  test 
of  the  most  thorough  investigation.  There  was 
a  time  when  the  conclusions  reached  by  these 
thinkers  could  be  scoffed  out  of  court  as  the 
deliverances  of  heretics  and  destroyers;  but 
that  time  is  past.  The  scientific  investigation 
of  the  New  Testament  records,  together  with 
the  new  light  which  archaeological  findings 
have  thrown  upon  New  Testament  times,  have 
placed  many  of  these  conclusions  beyond  the 
range  of  question.  Their  forced  acceptance 
has  necessitated  a  reexamination  of  the  founda- 

53 


54  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

tions  upon  which  it  was  supposed  for  so  long 
faith  stood  secure. 

For  twenty  centuries  Christian  thought  has 
based  the  authority  of  Jesus  upon  certain 
external  facts  whose  marvel  was  considered 
sufficient  to  justify  his  reputed  claim  to  a 
unique  place  among  the  sons  of  men.  Chief 
among  these  facts  were  the  miracles  he  is 
said  to  have  performed,  and  more  especially 
the  miracles  of  his  entrance  into  and  his  de- 
parture from  human  life.  With  the  progress 
of  science  the  miracles  of  Jesus  have  become 
a  difficulty  to  an  increasing  number  of  Chris- 
tian thinkers.  They  have  made  necessary  for 
many  what  G.  Stanley  Hall  has  called  *'a 
double  housekeeping  and  more  or  less  dualiza- 
tion  of  mind."  That  is,  they  have  required 
the  separate  maintenance  of  a  world  of  science 
and  a  world  of  faith,  which  these  Christians 
have  found  difficult  to  harmonize.  It  is  not 
my  object  here  to  undertake  an  investigation 
of  the  gospel  record  concerning  miracles.  I 
only  wish  to  suggest  that  the  place  of  Jesus 
in  history,  and  his  claim  upon  the  life  of  any 
age  does  not  depend  primarily  upon  belief  or 
disbelief  in  wonders  he  may  have  performed. 

In  early  days  signs  and  wonders  were  re- 
garded as  the  necessary  evidence  of  divine 
power.    All  the  great  men  of  old  attested  their 


JESUS  CHRIST  THE  ANSWER        55 

claim  to  be  the  representative  of  Deity  by  the 
performance  of  miracles.  Without  these  mighty 
works  their  testimony  would  not  be  heard. 
This  reliance  upon  wonders  as  the  certain 
evidence  of  God's  witness  was  peculiarly  strong 
among  the  Jews.  Their  prophets  had  accredited 
themselves  in  this  way.  Not  only  so,  but  they 
had  specified  in  their  teaching  that  when  the 
Messiah  should  appear  this  would  be  the 
sign  by  which  he  was  to  be  known.  It  is 
significant  that  Jesus  when  he  appeared  sought 
to  discourage  marvels  as  the  basis  of  his  claim. 
Nevertheless,  not  only  the  multitude  but  also 
the  disciples  asked  for  a  sign,  and  he  found 
it  necessary  to  accommodate  himself  to  this 
demand.  Otherwise  his  influence  upon  his  own 
age  would  fail,  and  that  influence  was  the 
fulcrum  from  which  alone  he  could  hope  to 
move  the  world. 

Essential  as  the  miracles  of  Jesus  were  to 
the  first  Christian  centuries,  the  progress  of 
time  has  lessened  their  evidential  value.  This 
change  has  been  due  not  to  the  failure  of 
faith  but  to  the  growth  of  faith.  It  indicates 
an  awakening  of  the  believers  in  Jesus  to  his 
own  view  of  the  nature  of  his  life  and  work. 
Jesus'  claim  to  our  allegiance  does  not  rest 
upon  his  ability  to  multiply  loaves,  to  walk 
on  the  water,  to  raise  the  dead  or  be  raised 


56  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

from  the  dead.  It  rests  upon  his  ability  to 
unite  man  with  God,  and  thereby  bring  satis- 
faction to  the  deepest  needs  of  human  life. 
Signs  were  necessary  one  day  just  as  the 
object  lesson  is  necessary  to  the  juvenile  mind; 
but  faith  must  pass  from  objects  and  dia- 
t  grams  to  principles  before  it  can  become  an 
instrument  of  life.  It  may  be  that  the  unique- 
ness of  Jesus'  life  once  recognized  will  make 
it  easier  than  not  to  accept  his  miracles  as 
evidence;  but  unless  a  man  has  known  the 
larger  freedom,  power,  and  fellowsliip  which 
Jesus  brought  to  life,  that  evidence  will  be 
valueless,  and  when  he  has  known  this  it  will 
become  altogether  secondary. 


That  which  distinguished  Jesus  among  men 
was  his  sense  of  oneness  with  God.  No  one 
else  had  made  this  pretension  and  sustained 
it  as  he  did  before  the  world.  *T  came  forth 
from  the  Father,"  he  said.  "I  and  the  Father 
are  one."  This  characteristic  distinguished 
both  his  life  and  teaching.  In  the  times  of 
severest  trial  he  was  self-composed  through  the 
consciousness  that  he  was  not  alone,  but  his 
life  was  linked  with  another  in  which  were 
limitless  resources  of  strength  and  wisdom. 
This  consciousness  found  voice  continually  in 


JESUS  CHRIST  THE  ANSWER        57 

his  words — indeed,  it  was  the  very  message 
of  his  gospel.  The  training  of  the  twelve  as 
the  first  missionaries  of  a  new  religion  had  as 
its  object  the  creation  of  a  belief  that  they 
too  were  not  alone,  but  were  sharers  in  the 
purpose  and  interest  of  God. 

It  has  been  the  aim  of  all  religious  thought 
and  effort  to  find  a  pathway  to  the  presence 
of  the  Infinite.  Before  Jesus  came  men  had 
looked  for  that  presence  chiefly  in  the  world 
without.  They  sought  the  revelation  of  God 
in  nature;  they  listened  for  his  voice  in  the 
wind  and  by  the  sea.  It  is  true  the  Hindoo 
had  turned  the  search  within.  In  his  proverb, 
"Myself  am  God,"  we  have  a  suggestion  of  the 
word  of  Jesus.  But  the  self  with  the  Hindoo 
was  a  sort  of  thing  outside,  and  to  find  it  and 
thus  find  God  he  must  deny  all  that  makes 
the  self  what  it  is.  It  was  the  merit  of  Jesus 
that  he  took  the  human  soul,  with  all  its  de- 
sires and  purposes,  its  passions  and  aims,  and 
linked  it  with  the  eternal.  He  said:  "Man  is 
supremely  God's  child.  In  him,  above  all 
things  else,  the  image  of  the  eternal  is  revealed. 
In  him  God  dwells,  and  through  him  he  comes 
to  self -consciousness."  The  destiny  of  man, 
therefore,  is  to  live  out  the  life  of  God  in  the 
soul.    This  is  man's  true,  his  higher  nature. 

There  can  be  no  oneness  in  tlie  sphere  of 


58  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

personality  that  is  not  expressed  in  a  union 
of  will  and  spirit.  The  life  of  a  person  is  the 
manifestation  of  a  self,  and  the  character  of 
self-expression  depends  wholly  upon  the  nature 
of  the  purpose  by  which  the  life  is  sustained. 
It  is  to  be  regretted  that  so  often  personality 
with  us  is  at  a  minimum  by  reason  of  the  lack 
of  a  principle  of  coordination;  but  so  far  as 
we  are  persons,  life  is  the  embodiment  of 
purpose,  and  so  far  as  we  share  the  life  of 
others  we  are  sharers  with  them  in  a  common 
aim.  Henry  Drummond's  well-known  case  of 
the  two  students  who  had  lived  together  in 
the  closest  friendship  is  significant  here.  The 
mental  and  moral  reaction  of  each  to  any 
situation  was  found  invariably  to  be  the  same. 
We  share  the  life  of  God  as  we  are  sharers  of 
the  purpose  of  God.  That  purpose  has  been 
revealed  through  the  ages.  The  nature  of  the 
eternal  has  not  remained  completely  hidden 
from  the  mind  of  man.  The  history  of  the 
race  is  the  story  of  the  gradual  revealing  of 
the  divine  nature.  The  possibility  of  that 
revelation  argues  an  essential  kinship  between 
the  human  and  the  divine,  and  a  perfect  life, 
if  it  were  realized,  becomes  at  once  a  declara- 
tion of  what  God  is  and  what  man  ought  to  be. 
In  Jesus  that  perfect  life  is  manifest.  In 
him   all   that  mystics   and  seers   through   the 


JESUS  CHRIST  THE  ANSWER        59 

ages  have  dimly  and  partially  intuited  is 
gathered  up  and  embodied.  In  him  the  divine 
nature  has  not  only  been  fully  grasped,  but  he 
has  dared  to  live  it  out  before  the  world.  Not 
only  does  Jesus  claim  oneness  with  God,  but 
the  character  of  his  life  is  in  complete  har- 
mony with  all  that  the  finer  spiritual  discern- 
ment of  man  recognizes  a  divine  life  ought  to 
be.  Jesus  does  not  base  his  claim  to  be  the 
Son  of  God,  therefore,  upon  the  mere  author- 
ity of  his  statement,  "I  and  the  Father  are 
one,"  nor  upon  the  reenforcement  of  that 
statement  by  marvelous  works.  The  state- 
ment is,  rather,  the  explanation  of  a  manner 
of  life  men  recognize  to  be  divine.  In  him 
God  is  man  and  man  is  God. 

To  be  linked  with  another  life  is  to  have 
one's  strength  multiplied;  and  if  that  other 
life  be  the  eternal,  there  are  no  limits  to  the 
range  of  possibility  open  to  man.  Many  a 
weak  and  wavering  soul  has  been  sustained, 
and  made  capable  of  righteousness,  simply  by 
the  love  or  friendship  of  another.  Ambition 
has  been  stimulated,  ideals  created,  and  strength 
given  to  follow  the  lead  of  those  ideals.  The 
secret  of  life,  says  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
is  juxtaposition.  At  the  crossroads  of  acquaint- 
anceship we  touch  the  determining  point  of 
our  career.    When  we  have  stated  union  with 


60  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

God,  therefore,  we  have  opened  up  an  infinite 
reach  to  human  life.  Not  only  is  confidence 
established,  through  the  conviction  that  one 
is  in  harmony  with  righteousness,  with  the 
power  that  grows  out  of  that  confidence,  a 
power  that  enables  one  to  face  suffering  with 
gladness  and  death  without  fear,  but  life  de- 
rives a  potency  capable  of  deeds  marvelous 
to  the  limited  sphere  of  the  child  of  earth. 
The  power  of  the  Father  speaks  through  the 
child.  Grant,  therefore,  Jesus'  claim  to  one- 
ness with  God,  and  you  have  provided  the 
condition  for  the  exercise  of  extraordinary 
power. 

II 

The  question  of  the  divinity  of  Jesus  has 
been  associated  in  many  minds  with  the  method 
of  his  entrance  into  the  world.  Grant  the 
miraculous  conception  and  divinity  follows; 
deny  it,  and  belief  in  divinity  fails.  It  is 
unfortunate  if  the  uniqueness  of  Jesus'  nature 
is  made  dependent  upon  an  event  that  is 
incidental,  and  which  acquires  its  chief  evi- 
dence from  the  fact  it  is  made  to  sustain. 
Such  a  confusion  can  only  be  a  cause  of  in- 
creasing difficulty  to  thoughtful  Christians. 

It  is  far  from  my  purpose  to  introduce  here 
a  discussion  of  the  miraculous  conception  of 


JESUS  CHRIST  THE  ANSWER        61 

Jesus.  That  doctrine  is  the  endeavor  of  an 
age  long  gone  to  state  a  great  and  mysterious 
truth.  The  statement  may  be  outworn,  there- 
fore some  are  tempted  to  throw  it  away.  Let 
us  beware,  however,  lest  we  throw  away  also 
the  truth  which  it  represents.  What  is  that 
truth?  That  Jesus  is  unique  among  men — 
unique  in  the  consciousness  of  his  relation  to 
God,  and  therefore  unique  in  his  life  and  work. 
The  mind  of  another  age  stated  that  truth 
by  saying  that  he  was  born  of  the  Spirit  of 
God.  That  statement  may  have  become 
awkward,  but  we  should  not  allow  its  awkward- 
ness to  silence  our  confession,  "Truly  this  is 
the  Son  of  God." 

The  uniqueness  of  Jesus'  life  necessarily  in- 
volved an  apparent  contradiction.  His  mission 
required  that  the  divine  life  should  be  lived 
out  within  the  limits  and  amid  the  conditions 
of  imperfect  men.  This  fact  gives  rise  to 
strange  contrasts  in  his  character.  In  him 
weakness  and  strength,  simplicity  and  wisdom, 
infirmity  and  majesty  are  strangely  com- 
mingled. He  shared  our  temptations  as  a 
friend  and  brother,  yet  he  was  sinless,  and 
we  go  to  him  for  help.  He  was  a  man  of 
sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief,  yet  his 
life  was  a  triumph  over  pain  and  sorrow.  The 
fathers  of  the  church  tried  to  state  this  dual 


62  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

character  by  declaring  that  he  was  Son  of 
man  and  Son  of  God.  He  was  one  with  men, 
yet  he  was  more  than  a  man.  On  the  one 
hand,  his  humanity  required  that  he  should 
come  into  the  world  by  human  birth;  on  the 
other  hand,  such  a  life  as  his  could  be  explained 
only  as  a  creation  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  Their 
statement,  however,  was  secondary.  It  was 
an  attempt  to  define  a  life  recognized  to  be 
at  once  distinctively  human,  and  yet  essentially 
divine.  The  definition  may  fail,  but  the  fact 
of  the  life  remains,  challenging  our  endeavor, 
and  rebuking  our  refusal  to  give  heed  to  its 
appeal. 

Ill 
We  have  only  stated  half  the  truth  of  Jesus' 
mission  in  the  words,  "I  and  the  Father  are 
one."  Jesus  did  not  stand  in  lofty  isolation 
above  the  lives  of  men.  What  he  was  he 
asked  his  followers  to  be;  what  God  was  to 
him  he  declared  he  would  be  to  every  man. 
"That  they  may  all  be  one;  even  as  thou, 
Father,  art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they 
also  may  be  in  us."  The  same  intimate  filial 
relation  that  characterized  his  life  was  the 
privilege  of  every  member  of  the  human  race. 
In  the  consciousness  of  that  relation  every 
man  might  find  the  answer  to  the  deep  needs 
of  his  life. 


JESUS  CHRIST  THE  ANSWER        63 

As  with  Jesus,  man's  union  with  God  may 
be  defined  in  a  twofold  way:  as  a  union  of 
spirit  and  a  union  of  will.  The  former  he 
characterized  by  the  term  "faith,"  the  latter 
by  the  term  "service."  These  are  the  two 
great  words  in  the  religion  of  Jesus. 

Faith  is  the  constant  experience  of  the  life 
of  God  in  the  soul,  a  sense  of  relationship  with 
the  eternal.  It  is  the  conviction  that  God  is, 
that  he  is  with  us,  that  he  is  with  us  to  lead 
and  help  and  heal.  The  God  in  whom  we 
believe  is  the  God  we  see  in  Jesus;  therefore 
faith  is  belief  in  Jesus.  Faith,  then,  is  an 
experience.  It  is  the  misfortune  of  Christian 
history  that  this  has  not  always  been  em- 
phasized. A  few  choice  spirits  in  the  early 
Christian  days  lived  life  in  union  with  God 
and  attempted  to  report  their  experience.  The 
generations  that  followed  took  that  report, 
formulated  it  into  a  system  of  belief,  and 
substituted  the  statement  for  the  experience 
itself.  Then  Christianity  gradually  became  a 
body  out  of  which  the  life  had  gone.  Yet 
down  across  the  centuries  comes  the  first 
apostles'  testimony,  "Believe  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  and  thou  shalt  be  saved." 

1.  This  faith  saves  from  the  limitations  of 
finitude.  Thereby  the  range  of  life  is  in- 
creased both  extensively  and  intensively.    Man 


64  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

is  no  longer  shut  in  by  the  boundaries  of  time. 
He  is  a  sharer  of  the  life  of  the  eternal.  Death 
cannot  harm  him.  He  has  that  within  him 
that  transcends  the  power  of  change  and  death. 
Not  only  so,  but  through  faith  he  finds  a 
vocation  that  gives  to  his  life  a  meaning  and 
worth  that  are  inestimable.  Henceforth  the 
goal  of  endeavor  is  that  he  shall  measure  toward 
the  standard  of  Him  in  whom  God  dwelt  com- 
plete. Character,  as  Jesus  realized  it,  be- 
comes a  value  to  be  sought  after  supremely. 
"What  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  gain  the 
world,  and  lose  his  soul.'^  Or  what  shall  a  man 
give  in  exchange  for  his  soul.^" 

And  here  we  come  upon  the  second  term  of 
Jesus'  gospel.  Life  is  so  constituted  that  no 
one  can  win  his  soul  alone.  Man,  as  a  child 
of  God,  is  the  member  of  a  family,  and  wins 
the  opportunity  to  a  larger  life  in  the  service 
of  his  fellows.  "He  that  loseth  his  life  shall 
save  it."  Union  with  God  is  fellowship  in 
work.  Each  shares  with  all  in  the  divine 
purpose  of  creating  a  kingdom  of  individuals 
who  will  be  partners  in  a  life  permeated  and 
controlled  by  the  divine  will.  The  ministry 
of  Jesus  was  the  inauguration  of  that  kingdom; 
it  was  also  the  evidence  that  ages  of  labor 
and  sacrifice  would  be  necessary  for  its  con- 
summation.    To  win  the  kingdom  Jesus  must 


JESUS  CHRIST  THE  ANSWER        65 

die;  to  become  one  with  him  in  the  life  of  God 
his  followers  become  sharers  with  him  in  a 
process  of  redemption  realized  through  the 
ministry  of  the  cross. 

2.  This  faith  saves  from  the  hurts  and  ills 
of  time.  It  has  been  said  that  the  unchristian 
conduct  of  society  to-day  does  not  instance 
the  failure  of  Christianity,  for  no  serious  at- 
tempt has  yet  been  made  to  apply  the  prin- 
ciples of  Jesus  to  social  relations.  This  same 
claim  might  be  made  regarding  one  aspect  at 
least  of  the  life  of  the  individual.  The  mass 
of  men  and  women  are  weighed  down  and 
their  happiness  marred  by  fear  and  anxiety, 
prompted  largely  by  ills  of  their  own  making. 
This  should  not  be.  Life  in  God  is  greater 
than  all  these  things  and  need  not  fear  because 
of  them.  Fear  is  the  great  enemy  of  man, 
and  fear  is  only  another  name  for  lack  of 
faith.  Jesus  often  wept  in  the  presence  of 
anxiety  and  heartache,  but  his  tears  were  tears 
of  sympathy  for  the  failure  of  faith.  It  was  so 
difficult  for  his  followers  to  learn  the  lesson  he 
came  to  teach,  that  they  could  rise  above  life's 
ills.  To  his  disciples  he  said :  * 'Have  faith  in 
God.  ...  If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mus- 
tard seed,  ye  shall  say  unto  this  mountain,  Re- 
move hence  to  yonder  place;  and  it  shall  re- 
move; and  nothing  shall  be  impossible  unto  you." 


66         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

We  have  poorly  learned  this  lesson  too. 
The  haggard  aspects  of  life — its  pain,  sorrow, 
misfortune,  and  disease — ^fill  our  souls  with 
fear,  when  all  that  is  needed  is  the  venture 
of  faith  to  prove  that  life  is  friendly  and  essen- 
tially trustworthy.  Trust  in  God,  with  a  clear 
sense  of  his  aim  for  life,  banishes  fear  as  the 
morning  sun  scatters  the  dark.  Who  can 
separate  us  from  the  love  of  God.^  Can  trib- 
ulation, or  distress,  or  persecution,  or  trial,  or 
nakedness,  or  peril,  or  sword?  Nay,  in  all 
these  things  we  are  more  than  conquerors, 
for  through  them  the  real  treasures  of  life  are 
won.  He  that  has  found  God  has  found  a 
source  of  contentment;  there  is  no  fear  for 
him  who  realizes  that  the  eternal  God  is  our 
refuge,  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting 
arms. 

3.  This  faith  saves  from  the  guilt  and  power 
of  sin.  Sin  is  primarily  separation  from  God. 
It  is  indifference  to  and  rebellion  against  the 
will  of  God.  It  is  following  the  momentary 
particular  interest,  as  opposed  to  the  appeal 
of  a  larger  good.  To  be  saved  from  sin  a  man 
must  be  drawn  away  from  obedience  to  narrow 
self-interest  into  devotion  to  the  law  of  the 
larger  life.  He  becomes  ready  to  sacrifice 
present  impulse  to  reason,  the  gratification  of 
the  moment  to  future  realization,   individual 


JESUS  CHRIST  THE  ANSWER        67 

gain  to  the  welfare  of  the  common  life.  Faith 
accomphshes  this  change.  As  the  act  of  com- 
ing into  conscious  union  with  God,  faith  begins 
a  process  of  transformation  in  character  that 
is  destined  to  terminate  in  righteousness.  The 
will  is  the  spring  of  action.  When  the  will 
becomes  right  it  tends  to  righten  the  whole 
life.  Sin  may  have  wrought  permanent  physical 
injury,  but  a  change  of  will  has  in  it  the  prom- 
ise of  rebirth  in  character.  Not  only  so,  but 
the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  makes  available 
to  man  the  resources  of  the  Infinite.  The  will 
of  man  is  energized  and  made  capable  of  an 
attainment  otherwise  impossible.  Jesus  stated 
this  fact  under  the  allegory  of  the  vine  and 
the  branches.  "Abide  in  me,  and  I  in  you. 
As  the  branch  cannot  bear  fruit  of  itself,  except 
it  abide  in  the  vine;  no  more  can  ye,  except 
ye  abide  in  me."  Jesus  is  the  world's  Re- 
deemer, for  it  is  through  him  that  man  is 
drawn  away  from  his  sin  into  union  with  the 
eternal.  He  has  taught  man  to  hate  his  sin. 
He  banished  the  cloud  of  guilt  from  the  human 
soul  when  he  said,  *Tt  is  not  the  will  of  your 
Father  .  .  .  that  one  of  these  little  ones  should 
perish."  He  struck  new  courage  into  man's 
heart  when  he  declared  that  God  is  ever 
laboring  and  suffering  for  his  wayward  chil- 
dren's sake.     Through  faith  in  him  souls  have 


68         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

gone  from  darkness  to  light,  from  the  power  of 
sin  and  death  to  the  power  of  the  Spirit  and 
life.  Dead  unto  sin,  they  have  become  alive 
mito  God  through  Jesus  Christ. 

I  may  not  be  able  to  satisfy  my  under- 
standing concerning  the  marvels  recorded  in  the 
Gospels  about  Jesus,  but  this  I  know':  when  I 
come  into  his  presence  I  see  one  who  has  made 
God  known  to  me;  I  see  one  who  reveals  to 
me  what  a  man  ought  to  be;  I  learn  that  my 
life  may  be  lived  in  union  with  the  Eternal, 
and  that  when  thus  lived  it  wins  a  power  that 
enables  it  to  rise  above  trouble,  sorrow,  death, 
and  sin.  This  is  enough.  I  bow  before  him 
and  lift  up  my  prayer  that  he  will  give  me 
faith  to  follow  him  and  grace  to  become  day 
by  day  more  like  him. 


CHAPTER  V 

HISTORY'S  TESTIMONY  TO  JESUS' 
CLAIM 

There  is  nothing  more  unique  in  the  minis- 
try of  Jesus  than  the  claims  he  made  con- 
cerning his  own  life  and  person.  Other  teachers 
have  given  a  system  of  truth;  Jesus  offered 
himseK  as  the  perfect  embodiment  of  the 
truth,  and,  setting  out  from  his  own  experience 
and  person,  all  that  he  said  was  a  charac- 
terization of  himself.  "I  am  the  bread  of  life 
— I  am  the  water  of  life — I  am  the  resurrec- 
tion and  the  life — I  am  the  way  and  the  truth 
and  the  life — I  am  the  light  of  the  world." 
These  are  some  of  the  claims  about  which  he 
built  the  framework  of  his  gospel,  and  among 
them  there  is  none  more  significant  than  the 
latter,  *T  am  the  light  of  the  world." 

The  significance  of  this  claim  lay  in  its 
prophetic  character.  The  truth  of  some  state- 
ments is  self-evident;  it  matters  not  by  whom 
they  are  spoken;  the  words  carry  with  them 
the  inevitable  testimony  of  truth.  Other 
statements  are  made  on  the  ground  of  possi- 
ble evidence.     Having  heard,  we  proceed  to 


70  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

gather  from  history  and  experience  the  proof 
we  need.  The  whole  is  greater  than  its  part 
— this  is  a  self-evident  truth.  In  the  same 
conditions  the  same  cause  will  produce  the 
same  effect — this  is  a  statement  based  on  the 
testimony  of  experience.  But  here  is  a  state- 
ment with  no  other  certificate  than  the  au- 
thority of  the  speaker,  for  this  Man  is  making 
a  claim  concerning  himself,  and  as  yet  he  has 
had  little  influence  in  the  world.  He  is  prac- 
tically unknown,  his  teaching  is  unheard,  his 
mission  is  misunderstood.  His  statement  is 
therefore  prophetic;  only  the  future  could 
vindicate  this  Man's  claim  to  be  the  light  of 
the  world. 

The  claim  is  significant  also  because  of  the 
character  of  the  analogy  employed.  No  ele- 
ment in  nature  possesses  a  greater  significance 
than  light.  Like  a  mantle  of  blessing,  light 
falls  upon  our  world,  bringing  life  and  growth 
and  beauty.  With  the  ancients  light  was  a 
sacred  thing;  it  was  associated  with  all  that 
is  highest  and  best.  It  was  the  synonym  of 
life,  the  symbol  of  moral  excellence,  the  garment 
of  the  eternal.  Modern  science  has  served  to 
deepen  the  mystery  of  light,  and  to  give  to  the 
term  a  larger  meaning.  It  shows  that  this  ele- 
ment fulfills  a  threefold  function,  each  division 
of  which  is  vital  to  the  well-being  of  the  race. 


TESTIMONY  TO  JESUS'  CLAIM       71 

1.  Light  is  the  source  of  power  in  the  natural 
world.  The  coal  in  the  mine,  the  electric 
current  in  the  wire,  the  energy  that  drives 
the  factory,  the  force  in  animal  and  vegetable 
life — all  these  are  variations  of  solar  energy. 
Like  a  mighty  dynamo  hitched  to  our  planet 
by  wires  called  sunbeams,  the  sun  is  feeding 
the  multiform  machinery  of  earth  with  power. 

2.  Light  is  the  condition  of  life  and  growth. 
Sunshine  is  a  metallic  shower,  that  bathes  us 
with  vaporized  metals  and  gases.  Nothing 
grows  without  it.  The  nude  races,  who  re- 
ceive the  sun's  rays  unobstructed,  are  endowed 
with  extraordinary  strength  and  endurance. 
When  Kitchener  was  with  his  army  in  the 
Soudan  his  men  were  taken  with  cholera,  and 
did  not  respond  to  the  use  of  medicine;  he 
ordered  them  to  strip  and  lie  in  the  sun,  "for," 
said  he,  "I  believe  that  the  sun  can  reach  these 
germs  of  disease  which  we  cannot  reach,"  and 
the  results  practically  justified  his  claim.  It 
is  the  sun  that  stores  the  grain  and  fruit  with 
those  elements  that  sustain  animal  life.  This 
is  the  perpetual  miracle  of  the  ages,  the  mys- 
tery of  growth.  The  seed  unfolds  in  stalk 
and  flower  and  fruit;  the  acorn  rises  in  the 
forest;  forever  the  multitudinous  forms  of 
earth  are  reaching  upward  and  outward  toward 
their  perfecting;  where  is  the  secret  of  it  all,^ 


72         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

In  the  sun.  Where  the  sun  shines  there  is 
life;  where  darkness  comes  there  is  death. 

3.  Light  is  the  source  of  the  world's  illumina- 
tion; it  is  the  counterpart  of  vision;  by  means 
of  it  we  find  our  way.  It  touches  the  face  of 
nature  with  grace  and  beauty. 

The  present  glory  of  this  claim  of  Jesus 
lies  in  the  fact  that  these  three  points  of  anal- 
ogy are  applicable  to  him  in  his  relation  to 
men;  that  he  who  said  two  thousand  years 
ago,  "I  am  the  light  of  the  world,"  has  shone 
like  a  sun  on  the  centuries,  lending  to  them 
life  and  power  and  illumination. 


Jesus  is  the  inspiration  of  modern  civilization; 
he  has  given  the  impulse  to  all  those  achieve- 
ments that  are  the  glory  of  modern   society. 

The  history  of  civilization  is  the  record  of 
man's  struggle  for  freedom.  Life  in  early 
times  was  servitude;  man  was  a  slave — a 
slave  to  his  fellows,  a  slave  to  ignorance,  a 
slave  to  circumstance.  This  condition  was 
manifest  in  the  entire  organization  of  society. 
Politically,  the  mass  of  the  people  were  serfs 
whose  task  was  to  do  the  arbitrary  will  of 
some  overlord;  morally,  ignorance  had  cast 
its  shadow  over  the  soul,  trailing  after  it  that 
great  brood  of  vices  that  blackened  the  face 


TESTIMONY  TO  JESUS'  CLAIM   73 

of  life  in  early  times;  religion  was  a  discipline 
of  fear,  by  which  man  sought  to  win  the  good 
will  of  powers  he  conceived  as  hostile  to  him- 
self; suffering,  disease,  and  death  walked  up 
and  down  the  earth,  with  none  to  check  their 
ravages  or  strip  them  of  their  power.  Human 
life  in  itself  is  inherently  bondage.  Wherever 
we  look  we  are  face  to  face  with  objects  and 
forces  which  set  themselves  in  opposition  to 
us  and  declare  we  must  submit.  Look  within, 
the  life  of  passion  and  impulse  tyrannizes  over 
us;  look  without,  we  are  subject  to  the  world 
of  nature  and  circumstance.  Drought  blights 
our  crops,  circumstance  wrecks  our  plans,  mis- 
fortune ruins  our  happiness.  The  goal  of  hu- 
man effort  is  to  rise  superior  to  these  opposi- 
tions, not  so  much  to  conquer  them  as  to  make 
them  our  friends.  Man's  task  in  life  is  to 
gain  control  of  himself  and  of  his  world. 

Although  the  early  centuries  in  history 
accomplished  much  that  was  great  and  good, 
in  this,  the  central  task  of  life,  they  signally 
failed.  Three  great  civilizations  arose  before 
the  time  of  Jesus,  were  put  to  the  test,  and 
proved  themselves  a  failure.  Despite  their 
achievements,  it  must  be  confessed  that  they 
missed  the  key  to  the  problem  of  life.  The 
Hebrew  nation  is  one  of  the  miracles  of  his- 
tory.   Born  in  the  desert  and  cradled  in  servi- 


74         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

tude,  this  people,  under  the  leadership  of  their 
prophets,  separated  themselves  from  the  idol- 
atrous peoples  of  the  earth  and  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  a  social  and  ethical  order  that  will 
abide  forever.  Although  only  a  handful,  they 
stood  for  centuries  unmoved  amid  the  empires 
of  the  earth.  But  Hebrew  civilization  fell 
short  of  its  goal.  It  was  narrow  and  exclusive, 
it  lacked  that  spirit  that  makes  for  permanence 
in  the  life  of  a  nation.  Truth  hardened  into 
tradition,  religion  lost  its  meaning,  righteous- 
ness became  a  name,  and  as  a  people  the 
Hebrews  passed  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Greece  is  one  of  the  world's  greatest  bene- 
factors. She  gave  to  the  world  art,  philosophy, 
and  literature.  No  nation  has  produced  so 
many  great  minds  who  enriched  human  life 
with  their  thought.  But  the  speculations  of 
the  Greek  sages  passed  above  the  heads  of 
the  people,  powerless  to  prevent  their  corrup- 
tion and  the  darkness  of  moral  failure.  Rome, 
too,  was  great.  She  led  her  armies  to  the  con- 
quest of  the  world  and  established  a  mighty 
empire.  But  she  lacked  the  direction  of  a 
great  moral  impulse,  and  as  a  result  life  lost 
its  purpose  and  was  weakened  by  vice.  The 
poor  were  enslaved,  labor  was  despised,  the 
rights  of  the  weak  were  ignored,  suicide  was 
praised.      Rome   did    some   great   things,    but 


TESTIMONY  TO  JESUS'  CLAIM   75 

she  lacked  the  inspiration  necessary  to  an 
abiding  civihzation. 

Then  one  day  a  Child  was  born  in  Palestine. 
He  grew  up  in  obscurity  in  his  little  Galilaean 
town.  When  he  came  to  manhood,  he  went 
down  to  the  Jordan  and  was  baptized  by  one 
John  the  Baptist,  and  certain  evidences  were 
given  that  marked  him  as  a  divine  leader 
among  men.  Then  he  gathered  about  him  a 
group  of  disciples  and  began  to  teach  them. 
He  taught  them  a  great  prayer;  it  read  like 
this:  "Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven,  hal- 
lowed be  thy  name.  Thy  kingdom  come. 
Thy  will  be  done  in  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven. 
Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.  And  forgive  us 
our  debts  as  we  forgive  our  debtors.  And  lead 
us  not  into  temptation,  but  deliver  us  from  evil." 

Here  was  the  key  the  world  needed.  Here 
were  certain  truths  destined  to  give  a  new 
meaning  to  human  life,  namely,  the  father- 
hood of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  that 
faith  is  the  principle  by  which  the  world  may 
be  overcome,  that  love  is  the  principle  that 
sweetens  life.  Then  he  set  himself  to  exem- 
plify these  teachings.  For  three  years  he  lived 
a  life  of  faith  toward  God  and  love  toward 
men,  realizing  in  himself  the  reality  of  his 
teaching.  Then  he  entered  Gethsemane,  to 
show   how  man    may  conquer    circumstance; 


76         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

he  climbed  Calvary,  and  came  out  by  way  of 
the  tomb  to  show  that  life  is  lord  of  death. 
A  new  age  began.  Certain  great  conceptions 
began  to  find  their  way  into  men's  minds 
and  to  affect  the  whole  of  life.  They  said, 
"If  man  is  God's  child,  then  life  is  a  sacred 
thing;  these  gladiatorial  games  must  go;  child- 
life  must  be  protected  and  nurtured;  the  aged 
must  be  cared  for."  This  gave  birth  to  the 
church,  the  hospital,  and  the  school.  They 
said,  "If  God  is  the  Father  of  all,  then  all  men 
are  brethren."  What  a  mighty  stream  of 
results  flowed  from  this  conception!  The 
missionary  set  out  to  carry  the  evangel  of 
God's  love  to  the  ends  of  the  earth;  the  slave 
was  emancipated;  political  democracy  rose 
like  a  star  of  hope  in  men's  hearts,  bringing 
the  promise  of  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity. 
They  said,  if  man  is  God's  child,  misfortune, 
disease,  and  death  have  a  place  in  the  divine 
discipline  of  life,  and  nothing  can  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  God.  A  new  spirit  took  pos- 
session of  men.  Life  took  on  a  fresh  meaning. 
The  soul  now  had  a  high  task  before  it,  and 
with  courage  and  hope  men  set  themselves  to 
realize  the  program  of  their  Master's  life. 

This  is  what  Jesus  is  doing.  He  is  helping 
men  and  women  bear  their  disappointments  and 
overcome  their  temptations.     He  is  removing 


TESTIMONY  TO  JESUS'  CLAIM   77 

the  burden  from  the  oppressed  and  Hfting  up 
the  downtrodden.  He  is  making  men  brothers. 
He  is  making  the  ends  of  the  earth  neighbors. 
He  is  making  hfe  everywhere  sweeter  and 
people  happier.  He  is  leading  forward  currents 
of  reform  and  renewal.  He  is  their  inspira- 
tion, he  gives  them  direction.  "I  am  the 
light  of  the  world." 

II 

Jesus  Christ  has  furnished  the  conditions  of 
moral  and  spiritual  growth;  he  is  the  "sun  of 
righteousness."  Growth  is  God's  perpetual 
miracle,  by  which  he  unfolds  before  us  un- 
ceasingly the  majesty  and  mystery  of  life. 
This  question  of  miracle  is  one  that  has  been 
greatly  confused.  We  have  insisted  on  restrict- 
ing the  term  to  the  extraordinary  and  unac- 
countable, and  have  trained  ourselves  to  look 
for  God  in  the  capricious,  thereby  robbing  our 
common  life  of  the  beauty  of  its  divine  meaning. 
If  we  were  to  stand  out  on  tlie  hillside  to-day, 
and  suddenly  a  plant  should  rise  out  of  the 
earth  and  unfold  in  stalk  and  flower  and  fruit, 
we  would  say:  "A  miracle!  God  is  in  this 
place."  But  if  we  plant  a  seed  in  the  garden, 
and  to-morrow  two  green  leaves  appear,  and 
in  their  time  the  flower  and  fruit,  we  forget 
that  God  is  there,  and  that  the  rare  happening 


78  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

when  it  occurs  is  necessary  only  because  we 
do  forget.  When  we  study  the  science  of 
growth  we  notice  that  two  factors  are  in- 
volved: the  life-impulse  and  suitable  condi- 
tions. Plant  a  seed:  for  growth  there  must  be 
first,  a  principle  of  life,  then,  moisture,  sunlight, 
and  warmth.  Plant  a  stone,  you  may  have 
the  most  suitable  conditions,  yet  it  will  be 
nothing  else;  plant  a  seed,  but  with  conditions 
of  drought  and  chill  there  can  be  no  growth. 
The  same  is  true  in  these  human  lives  of  ours. 
For  growth  toward  manhood  and  womanhood 
two  factors  are  involved:  there  must  be  the 
life-impulse  and  there  must  be  a  suitable 
atmosphere.  God  has  planted  in  us  the  life- 
impulse;  it  belongs  to  our  nature  as  human 
beings.  Every  soul  born  into  the  world  is  a 
seed  of  divine  life  planted  in  the  fields  of  time. 
In  the  morning  of  creation  God  said,  "Let  us 
make  man  in  our  image,  after  our  likeness." 

We  all  have  in  us  the  possibility  of  the  divine 
likeness.  All  that  is  needed  is  a  proper  atmos- 
phere for  its  development.  Plant  a  soul  in 
the  heart  of  Africa,  where  the  light  has  not 
shined,  and  it  will  grow  up  pagan.  Plant  a 
soul  in  the  slums  of  the  modern  city,  where 
the  light  has  been  smothered  beneath  the 
shadow  of  sin  and  vice,  and  it  will  be  none  the 
less  pagan.     Plant  a  soul  amid  conditions  of 


TESTIMONY  TO  JESUS'  CLAIM       79 

abject  toil,  in  childhood,  robbed  of  the  tender 
care  of  a  fostering  love;  in  boyhood,  of  oppor- 
tunities for  mental  and  moral  improvement;  in 
manhood,  doomed  to  tramp  the  treadmill  of 
an  unending,  distasteful,  uninteresting  task, 
and  it  grows  up  reprobate  in  mind  and  heart. 
The  more  I  study  some  phases  of  our  indus- 
trial life,  the  less  I  wonder  that  so  many  of 
our  working  people  present  such  an  unlovely 
spectacle.  Fortunate  you  are  if  you  love  your 
work;  if  it  is  yours,  if  it  inspires  your  interest, 
it  will  be  easy  to  be  good  and  happy.  But 
if  your  task  is  forced  on  you  by  the  pressure 
of  necessity,  if  it  is  not  yours,  and  you  have 
no  other  ambition  than  to  get  it  done,  a  burden 
from  which  death  alone  can  free  you,  it  will 
crush  the  joy  out  of  your  heart  and  the  light 
from  your  life. 

Now,  Jesus  came  to  create  conditions  fav- 
orable to  the  development  of  the  true  type 
of  manhood.  He  is  the  "Sun  of  Righteousness," 
that  is,  he  provides  the  conditions  necessary 
for  the  production  of  righteous  character.  He 
came  to  bring  light  to  the  heart  of  Africa, 
to  bring  cleansing  to  moral  slums,  to  create 
in  the  world  a  new  social  order  in  which  moral 
and  physical  servitude  will  not  exist,  and 
which  shall  lift  from  men  the  burden  of  de- 
grading toil.     Thank  God,  he  is  accomplish- 


80  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

ing  his  end,  the  Hght  has  not  shined  in  vain. 
Africa  and  the  islands  of  the  sea  are  being 
reclaimed.  There  is  growing  among  Chris- 
tian peoples  an  awakened  social  consciousness 
that  the  slum  and  the  gutter  are  a  moral  in- 
justice. Under  the  constraint  of  the  Master's 
spirit  men  will  one  day  learn  to  love  each 
other  and  to  work  for  the  common  good.  It 
is  true  the  light  is  not  yet  fully  risen.  When 
the  seventh  annual  report  of  the  chief  of  the 
Children's  Bureau  tells  us  that  in  47  factories 
visited  in  one  State  in  1918,  430  children  under 
twelve  years  old  were  employed;  that  in  205 
canneries  in  another  State  721  children  under 
fourteen  were  found,  fifty  of  them  being  under 
ten;  when  the  secretary  of  the  Child  Labor  Com- 
mission declares  that  one  million  children  under 
sixteen  are  laboring  in  our  industries,  that  is, 
one  million  children  deprived  of  the  chance 
of  physical,  mental,  and  moral  development, 
doomed  to  a  life  of  ignorance,  wretchedness, 
and  sin,  the  force  of  this  comes  to  us.  But 
the  existence  of  such  conditions  is  not  an 
arraignment  of  Jesus  Christ:  it  is  an  arraign- 
ment of  our  human  weakness.  No  one  of  us 
doubts  that  if  the  principles  Jesus  taught  were 
put  into  effect,  and  the  spirit  Jesus  showed 
was  exemplified  among  men,  a  new  age  of 
good  will  and  gladness  would  dawn,  and  so 


TESTIMONY  TO  JESUS'  CLAIM       81 

far  as  society  is  filled  with  light  and  peace  it 
is  drawn  from  him. 

Ill 

Again,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  growth 
toward  moral  excellence  is  determined  by  an 
ideal.  This  is  so  true  as  to  be  almost  a  plat- 
itude. For  the  moral  education  of  a  boy 
there  must  be  some  hero  who  exemplifies  the 
grace  or  characteristic  desired;  this  stimulates 
and  directs  his  moral  development.  For  un- 
limited growth  in  life  there  must  be  a  perfect 
example  in  which  are  combined  all  the  graces 
and  virtues  of  character. 

This  is  one  of  the  chief  merits  of  the  appear- 
ance of  Jesus  Christ  among  men.  There  is  a 
story  from  the  life  of  the  great  Italian  painter, 
Michael  Angelo.  When  he  was  a  youth  he 
was  bidden  to  paint  a  picture  described  by 
his  teacher,  but  the  more  faithfully  he  tried 
the  more  signal  was  his  failure.  Finally  the 
teacher  took  a  crayon  and  sketched  the  rough 
outline  of  his  thought  and  asked  the  youth 
to  return  to  his  task.  Angelo  seized  the  brush 
and  soon  filled  in  the  outline  in  perfect  accord 
with  the  teacher's  idea.  This  story  is  true  of 
the  higher  art  of  life.  With  master  hand  Jesus 
has  sketched  the  outline  of  the  perfect  life, 
and  then  has  bidden  us  out  of  the  materials 


82         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

of  the  days  to  complete  his  idea.  Our  success 
depends  upon  our  following  with  care  the  com- 
pleted form  of  his  outline. 

What  virtue  was  not  supremely  perfect  in 
him.^  What  heroism!  What  moral  courage! 
What  victory  over  difficulty!  What  calmness 
and  confidence!  In  the  darkest  hour  he  saw 
the  stars  shining  on  the  path,  he  felt  that  God 
was  near  and  the  gate  of  hope  open.  Other 
names  are  great,  but  to  whom  can  we  liken 
the  Man  of  Galilee.^  In  his  matchless  poem, 
"The  Crystal,"  Sydney  Lanier  makes  a  survey 
of  the  prominent  names  of  history — Homer, 
Socrates,  Dante,  Milton,  Keats,  and  Emerson. 
He  finds  in  each  certain  qualities  of  excellence, 
but  in  every  case  mingled  with  some  fleck  or 
flaw.  He  concludes  his  estimate  with  these 
words  in  reference  to  Jesus: 

"But  thee,  but  thee,  O  sovereign  seer  of  time. 
But  thee,  O  poet's  poet,  wisdom's  tongue. 
But  thee,  O  man's  best  man,  O  love's  best  love, 
O  perfect  life  in  perfect  labor  writ, 
O  all  men's  comrade,  servant,  king,  or  priest — 
What  if  or  yet,  what  mole,  what  flaw,  what  lapse, 
What  least  defect  or  shadow  of  defect, 
What  rumor,  tattled  by  an  enemy. 
Of  inference  loose,  what  lack  of  grace 
Even  in  torture's  grasp,  or  sleep's,  or  death's — 
Oh,  what  amiss  may  I  forgive  in  thee, 
Jesus,  good  paragon,  thou  crystal  Christ?"* 

*  The  Foemt  of  Sydney  Lanier.   New  York,  Charles  Scribner'*  Sons,   1906. 


TESTIMONY  TO  JESUS'  CLAIM       83 

Who  can  measure  the  influence  of  this  ex- 
ample among  men?  The  saints  and  mystics 
that  have  been  his  imitators,  the  nameless 
millions  who  have  striven  to  follow  him  and 
have  found  the  way  home.  The  task  of  Chris- 
tian experience  to-day  is  to  give  allegiance 
to  this  ideal,  to  treasure  in  the  soul  this  su- 
preme model,  to  be  able  to  say  with  Paul, 
"For  me  to  Hve  is  Christ." 

Not  only  did  Jesus  present  an  ideal  for  the 
individual  life;  he  presented  one  also  for  social 
effort.  He  painted  on  the  canvas  of  the  sky 
the  picture  of  a  kingdom,  toward  which  he 
bade  men  turn  their  hearts  and  direct  their 
endeavor.  Through  the  centuries  the  efforts 
of  philanthropist  and  teacher,  economist  and 
reformer  have  found  their  inspiration  here. 
We  to-day,  like  the  prophet  of  long  ago,  are 
looking  forward  to  the  time  when  peace  and 
good  will  will  reign,  and  the  well-being  of  all 
will  be  fostered,  and  we  think  of  that  day  in 
terms  of  Jesus'  conception  of  the  kingdom. 
Like  the  Star  of  the  East,  this  has  been  lead- 
ing the  generations  across  the  desert  toward 
the  City  of  God. 

"He  that  followeth  me  shall  not  walk  in 
darkness,  but  shall  have  the  light  of  life." 
"The  light  of  life" — there  is  something  im- 
pressive in   the  words.     This  journey  of  life 


84  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

is  a  treacherous  way,  through  forest  and 
desert,  over  mountain  and  stormy  sea,  a  way 
over  which  we  have  not  gone  before,  and 
which  is  therefore  unknown.  Unless  we  can 
get  Hght  upon  a  few  outstanding  questions  we 
are  indeed  wanderers.  There  are  three  words 
on  which  we  must  have  hght:  "duty," 
"destiny,"  and  "God."  What  are  we  to  be- 
heve?  What  are  we  to  be.^  What  are  we  to 
do?  Nature,  philosophy,  and  history  are  all 
silent  regarding  these  questions.  Jesus  alone 
answers  them.  What  are  we  to  believe.'^  Be- 
lieve that  God  is  your  Father,  that  he  is  ever 
near,  that  he  is  working  with  you  and  for  you. 
What  are  we  to  be. ^^  Be  what  I  am.  What 
are  we  to  do.^^  Follow  me.  And  so  amid  the 
round  of  daily  cares  we  follow  on,  knowing 
that  he  who  spake  two  thousand  years  ago 
has  proven  his  words  true  when  he  said,  "I 
am  the  light  of  the  world:  he  that  foUoweth 
me  shall  not  walk  in  darkness,  but  shall  have 
the  light  of  life." 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 

In  June,  1904,  a  somewhat  remarkable 
book  was  published  by  the  Rev.  Byron  Palmer, 
of  Ashtabula,  Ohio,  entitled  God's  White  Throne, 
or  A  Defense  of  Divine  Wisdom  and  Goodness 
in  the  Dark  Things  of  the  World  and  Life,  This 
book  was  unique,  not  so  much  by  reason  of 
its  contents  as  because  of  its  relation  to  the 
author.  Soon  after  leaving  school,  and  just 
as  he  was  beginning  the  Christian  ministry, 
this  man  was  stricken  with  an  incurable 
disease,  a  slow  process  of  ossification.  First 
his  limbs  became  useless,  then  one  arm,  one 
eye,  and  finally  the  spine  was  attacked.  For 
years  he  spent  twelve  hours  in  bed  and  twelve 
hours  in  a  wheel  chair,  while  his  wife  taught 
school  to  support  the  home.  Now  he  has 
himself  wheeled  up  to  the  desk,  that  with  the 
remaining  arm  and  the  dim  light  of  the  re- 
maining eye,  he  may  write  this  book  justify- 
ing the  ways  of  God  with  men. 

In  the  introduction  Mr.  Palmer  says:  "When 
at  last  came  the  ordeal  of  being  shut  away 
from  the  world,  and  of  leaving  my  life's  work, 

85 


86  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

and  of  being  compelled  to  accept  the  life  and 
the  lot  of  a  daily  sufferer,  my  mind  naturally 
turned  to  the  problems  which  experience  had 
made  uppermost  in  my  daily  meditation.  It 
became  necessary  for  me  to  seek  and  find  a 
satisfactory  solution  of,  not  only  the  problem 
of  personal  suffering,  but  of  the  larger  prob- 
lems of  human  life  and  destiny,  of  the  apparent 
misadjustments  in  the  world,  of  the  seeming 
contradictions  in  the  course  of  Providence,  of 
the  absence  of  order  in  divine  government, 
and  the  apparent  defeat  of  righteousness  and 
truth  in  the  world. "^ 

The  question  voiced  in  these  words  is  ages 
old:  How  shall  we  retain  behef  in  the  being 
and  rule  of  God  in  face  of  suffering  and  other 
forms  of  evil?  This  difficult  problem  con- 
stitutes a  shadow  that  has  rested  upon  the 
intellectual  history  of  the  human  race.  It  is 
the  everlasting  "\Miy?"  Under  its  pressure 
human  hearts  in  every  generation  have  been 
driven  to  pessimism  and  despair.  In  the 
attempt  to  solve  it  man's  genius  has  risen  to 
its  greatest  height. 

It  is  the  fatal  charge  against  materialism 
and  the  doctrine  of  the  negation  of  evil  that 
they  fail  to  provide  a  ground  for  a  practical 

» Byron  Palmer,  God't  White  Throne.     Cincinnati,  Tho  Methodist  Book 
Concern.     1904. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  87 

optimism.  No  theory  of  evil  is  either  possible 
or  satisfactory  except  on  a  pragmatic  basis. 
Centuries  of  reflection  have  proven  that  the 
theoretical  aspect  of  the  problem  cannot  be 
solved;  yet  man  must  live  amid  conditions  of 
evil  and  find  life  not  only  tolerable  but  de- 
sirable. Nothing  is  more  evident  than  the 
tendency  of  men  to  lapse  into  pessimism  and 
despair  when  they  lose  their  faith  in  the  wis- 
dom and  the  righteousness  of  things.  We 
cannot  hope  to  explain  why  the  world  is  as 
it  is,  why  man  is  constituted  as  he  is;  but 
we  must  preserve  our  belief  that  the  world 
is  wisely  ordered  and  that  human  life  is  of 
worth.  To  save  faith  in  the  goodness  of  God 
and  the  desirability  of  life,  some  explanation 
is  demanded. 

It  is  the  merit  of  the  answer  of  the  illustrious 
sufferer  in  God's  White  Throne,  that,  like  Job 
of  old,  he  has  retained  his  faith  in  the  worth 
of  human  life.  He  does  not  rebel  against  the 
lot  that  has  fallen  to  him.  He  does  not  com- 
plain against  divine  justice.  He  does  not 
cry  out,  like  Petronius  in  Sienkiewicz'  Quo 
Vcidis,  "Weakness  cometh;  it  is  better  that 
I  depart."  He  does  not  steel  himself  into  an 
attitude  of  stoical  indifference,  declaring  that 
he  will  despise  these  things  even  while  they 
overcome  him.     He  asserts  that  this  is  God's 


88         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

world,  and  that  he  governs  it  in  the  interest 
of  a  moral  and  spiritual  order.  Virtue,  holi- 
ness, patience,  love,  are  the  fruit  he  seeks. 
Life's  evils  are  the  method  of  discipline 
necessary  to  the  production  of  this  result. 
They  who  follow  the  devious  path  up  through 
darkness  to  light  alone  are  life's  victors. 


Life's  discipline  is  necessary  because  man  is 
what  he  is.  He  is  not  a  mere  mechanism; 
he  is  a  conscious  being.  He  grows  by  exercise; 
he  learns  by  doing.  Exercise  we  know  is  the 
great  thing  in  muscle-making.  It  is  the  man 
under  strenuous  physical  discipline  that  de- 
velops physique.  The  pioneers  of  our  land 
of  two  centuries  ago  were  a  sturdier  stock 
than  the  men  of  to-day,  because  life  for  them 
meant  warfare.  They  must  kill  the  wild 
beasts  that  preyed  upon  them;  they  must 
clear  away  the  forest  and  plow  the  fallow 
ground  if  they  would  eat  bread.  Physical 
hardships  made  them  strong.  The  mothers  of 
that  day  knew  nothing  of  the  weakness  and 
suffering  of  the  women  of  to-day. 

And  exercise  is  tlie  great  thing  m  character- 
making.  Character  is  strengthened  by  exert- 
ing the  will  along  the  line  of  a  resolution. 
Character,  said  Novalis,  is  a  completely  fash- 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  89 

ioned  will;  that  is,  a  will  that  always  takes 
the  path  of  the  ought.  It  makes  us  stronger 
to  do  something  each  day  merely  because  we 
ought  to  do  it;  and  to  feel  what  we  ought  to 
do  and  yet  pass  it  by,  deals  a  blow  to  will- 
power. So  common  a  thing  as  lying  in  bed 
in  the  morning  when  we  know  we  ought  to 
get  up  weakens  character.  On  the  other  hand, 
to  face  difficulty  with  the  determination  to 
overcome  it  develops  strength.  It  is  well  for 
us  that  we  do  not  have  the  control  of  our 
lives  wholly  in  our  own  hands.  We  would 
choose  the  path  of  ease,  and  ease  is  not  good. 
To  safeguard  against  this  mistake  we  are 
placed  amid  conditions  that  require  of  us 
constant  struggle  and  sacrifice.  No  good  of 
life  is  bought  without  its  price.  The  treasures 
of  earth  must  be  wrought  for,  its  jewels  digged, 
its  fields  cleared,  its  forests  reclaimed.  Only 
amid  scenes  of  sorrow  and  failure  are  mental 
and  moral  stability  attained.  We  do  not  know 
what  is  best;  it  is  well  that  necessity  drives 
us  forward,  while  the  heart  teaches  us  to  trust 
that  the  way  is  good. 

II 

The  thought  of  life's  discipline  offers  a  key 
to  the  nature  of  evil.  A  popular  way  of  dis- 
posing of  this  problem  has  been  to  refer  it  to 


90         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

the  devil.  He  is  the  author  of  darkness;  an 
infinite  demon  is  at  work  among  men  whose 
mischief  makes  misery;  a  rival  power  is  in 
the  world  which  in  conflict  with  God  at  times 
seems  to  outdo  him.  It  is  only  fair  to  notice 
that  this  teaching  is  not  essentially  Christian, 
but  it  has  come  down  to  us  from  a  pre-Chris- 
tian age.  Zoroaster,  twelve  centuries  before 
Christ,  to  escape  making  God  responsible  for 
evil,  conceived  of  a  dual  principle  giving  birth 
to  two  brothers,  the  power  of  good  and  the 
power  of  evil.  This  dualism  was  taken  over 
by  the  Jews  of  the  Babylonish  captivity. 
"There  is  no  evidence,"  says  John  Fiske, 
"that  the  Jews  previous  to  the  Babylonish 
captivity  possessed  the  conception  of  a  devil 
as  the  author  of  evil."^  The  later  Jews  ascribed 
to  Satan  all  the  ills  of  life.  From  Judaism 
this  conception  passed  into  Christianity,  and 
gradually  took  form  as  an  established  doctrine. 
Such  a  doctrine,  however,  strikes  at  divine 
sovereignty;  it  gives  us  a  universe  divided 
against  itself,  and  therefore  the  thinking  world 
to-day  is  rapidly  abandoning  it. 

1.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  physical 
order,  what  we  call  evil  is  natural  consequence. 
It  is  a  necessary  result  in  a  universe,  that  is 

iJohn    Fiske,    Myths   and    Myth-Makers,   p.    122.     Boston,    Houghton 
Mifflin  Compauy.     1900. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  91 

in  a  world  a  perfect  ordered  system,  that 
infringement  on  the  rights  of  that  order  should 
bring  disharmony.  To  be  out  of  order  is  not 
pleasant;  it  means  conflict;  it  means  suffering. 
It  is  a  part  of  the  nature  of  things  that  disease 
should  follow  impure  living,  and  that  calam- 
ity should  result  from  breaking  across  the  path 
of  law.  These  things  are  not  the  works  of 
an  evil  one,  they  are  the  natural  consequences 
of  an  ordered  world,  and  it  is  the  task  of 
modern  civilization  to  eliminate  them  by 
establishing  life  in  harmony  with  God's  law. 

Pain  is  hard  to  bear,  but  it  is  not  the  worst 
thing  in  the  world.  It  is  a  beneficent  agent 
of  God's  goodness.  It  is  nature's  warning 
that  the  course  we  are  taking  is  destructive, 
and  without  it  the  race  would  extinguish  itself. 
Pain  is  the  life-principle  asserting  itself  against 
that  which  would  overcome  it.  When  a  man 
suffers,  his  suffering  is  the  result  of  the  struggle 
of  life  to  maintain  itself.  Bodily  life  implies 
sensation,  and  sensation  means  enjoyment 
when  all  the  functions  of  life  work  normally, 
and  suffering  when  they  are  obstructed. 

2.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  moral  order, 
evil  is  sin,  and  sin  has  its  origin  in  the  human 
will.  It  is  rebellion  against  the  will  of  God. 
By  the  will  of  God  we  mean  those  moral  re- 
quirements   which    in    their    relation    to    the 


92  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

individual  and  to  society  make  the  fullest 
life  possible.  That  we  should  be  free  spiritual 
agents  is  the  purpose  of  creation.  But  the 
gift  of  freedom  implies  the  possibility  of  sin. 
In  balancing  between  powers  and  passions, 
principles  and  appetites,  it  is  possible  for  us 
to  choose  the  lower  rather  than  the  higher, 
self-interest  instead  of  sympathy,  love,  and 
honor.  It  is  because  we  choose  the  lower, 
contrary  to  God's  will,  that  moral  blight  and 
calamity  fall  upon  human  life,  for  the  wages 
of  sin  is  death. 

3.  But  you  say:  "What  of  those  calamities 
that  fall  upon  life  unexpected  and  undeserved.^ 
What  of  the  rigliteous  who  suffer  while  the 
wicked  prosper.^"  This  was  the  problem  that 
faced  the  writer  of  the  book  of  Job :  why  should 
a  good  man  suffer.?  While  not  attempting  to 
defend  the  justice  of  calamity  or  of  undeserved 
pain,  it  may  be  noted  that  both  have  served 
a  moral  purpose.  First,  it  is  quite  evident 
that  if  reward  was  always  apportioned  accord- 
ing to  desert,  there  would  be  scant  oppor- 
tunity for  the  production  of  unselfishness, 
which  is  the  very  life  of  character.  And, 
secondly,  the  social  constitution  of  human  life 
is  such  that  many  are  involved  in  the  mistakes 
of  one.  No  man  liveth  or  dieth  unto  himself. 
Those  ties  called  heredity,  proximity,  respon- 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  93 

sibility,  are  often  instrumental  in  throwing 
upon  the  innocent  suffering  for  others'  sin. 
But  in  such  vicarious  pain  life  finds  its  heal- 
ing. To  love  is  to  suffer,  but  in  the  suffering 
of  love  life  is  reborn  to  better  things.  The 
world  lives  by  the  vicarious  sacrifice  of  love 
and  innocence. 

The  pain  side  of  life  then  serves  not  only 
a  physical  but  a  moral  purpose.  Sickness  has 
taught  men  divine  lessons;  death  is  one  of 
the  mightiest  educators  of  the  race.  Sadness 
is  the  mother  of  tenderness;  patience  and  hope 
are  born  of  difficulty  and  disappointment. 
Without  pain  we  could  never  learn  the  mean- 
ing of  sympathy,  nor  attain  the  will  to  sacri- 
fice. Our  own  burdens  and  woundings  give  us 
a  sensibility  to  others'  needs.  The  experience 
of  pain — in  sickness  and  sorrow,  disappoint- 
ment and  difficulty,  danger  and  defeat — is 
the  matrix  out  of  which  are  begotten  all  those 
other-regarding  graces  that  give  to  life  its 
charm. 

Even  the  sin  of  man  has  become  a  condi- 
tion for  accomplishing  good,  for  here  the  sac- 
rifice of  self -giving  has  reached  its  height. 
The  possibility  of  healing  from  sin  is  meas- 
ured by  man's  ability  to  suffer  for  others' 
sake.  In  the  cross  of  Christ  this  truth  has 
been  manifest,  and  as  men  have  accepted  it 


94  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

and  devoted  themselves  to  it  they  have  been 
trained  to  goodness  and  brought  into  fellow- 
ship with  the  eternal.  They  have  found  a 
motive  for  bearing  pain  with  gladness  as 
heroes  and  martyrs,  believing  they  were  "filling 
up  their  part  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ." 

Ill 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  those  things  called 
evils  are  in  great  part  the  result  of  the  cheek 
and  correction  of  God's  teachers,  and  are  in- 
tended for  our  good.  Every  trial  has  its 
compensation.  This  is  true  even  of  that  form 
of  testing  that  results  in  sin.  "Count  it  all 
joy,"  says  the  apostle,  "when  you  fall  into 
manifold  temptations;  knowing  that  the  proof 
of  your  faith  worketh  patience."  It  is  not 
enough  that  man  should  have  the  power  to 
choose  the  wrong;  life  is  presenting  constant 
invitations  to  make  the  wrong  choice.  Thus 
his  power  is  tested.  The  possibility  of  character 
implies  freedom,  and  freedom  is  real  only 
when  it  grapples  with  opposition.  Further- 
more, the  possibility  of  character  implies  that 
our  world  is  in  the  making.  A  finished  world 
would  not  be  a  favorable  environment  for  the 
development  of  moral  beings.  The  unbeliever 
has  made  the  apparent  imperfections  in  our 
world  a  ground  for  his  opposition  to  the  claim 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  95 

that  wisdom  and  goodness  are  at  the  heart 
of  things.  Given  a  chance,  he  would  create 
a  better  world  than  this.  But,  alas!  he  has 
failed  to  interpret  life  in  moral  terms,  or  he 
would  have  seen  that  ours  is  the  best  possible 
world  for  the  production  of  that  which  reveals 
itself  as  the  purpose  of  creation. 

The  justification  of  this  view  of  the  evils  of 
life  is  found  in  the  almost  inexhaustible  supply 
of  illustration  presented  in  every  sphere  of 
observation.  In  nature  the  elements,  if  left 
to  themselves,  tend  to  stagnate  into  pestilence, 
but  the  storm  comes  to  stir  them  again  to 
health  and  sweetness.  History  teaches  that  those 
races  out  of  whose  life  have  come  the  divinest 
revelations  of  thought,  energy,  and  faith  have 
been  located  amid  rocky  mountains  and  barren 
deserts  or  beside  roaring  seas,  where  acquaint- 
ance with  hardship  has  created  courage,  and 
the  presence  of  immensity  has  awakened  a 
sense  of  the  eternal.  The  prophet  of  the  Old 
Testament  sums  up  the  record  of  a  people's 
misfortune  in  the  words:  "Thou  shalt  remem- 
ber all  the  way  which  the  Lord  thy  God  has 
led  thee  these  forty  years  in  the  wilderness, 
to  humble  thee,  and  to  prove  thee,  to  know 
what  was  in  thine  heart,  whether  thou  wouldst 
keep  his  commandments,  or  no."  From  Jacob 
and  David  to  John  and  Paul,   the  spiritual 


96         FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

genius  of  Scripture  finds  its  source  in  dark- 
ness and  desolation.  Many  of  the  greatest 
masterpieces  in  modern  literature  and  art 
were  born  out  of  bereavement  and  cradled  by 
the  hand  of  infirmity.  The  noblest  visions  of 
the  soul  are  evoked  by  hardship,  like  incense 
touched  with  fire.  They  say  that  there  is  a 
flower  in  South  America  that  blooms  only 
when  the  wind  blows  hard.  It  is  a  species 
of  cactus.  On  the  stem  are  little  lumps  which 
being  smitten  by  the  strong  wind  burst  into 
bloom.    So  is  it  in  our  lives. 

"We  look  before  and  after. 

And  pine  for  what  is  not; 
Our  sincerest  laughter 

With  some  pain  is  fraught; 
Our  sweetest  songs  are  those 

That  tell  of  saddest  thought."* 

What,  then,  is  the  lesson  of  it  all.^  This 
is  God's  world.  It  is  not  a  realm  divided  against 
itself.  God  has  created  the  world  and  is 
determining  it  every  day.  The  conditions 
governing  that  creation  are  ordained  by  him, 
and  they  are  the  best  possible  conditions  for 
accomplishing  their  appointed  end.  That  end 
is  the  production  of  character — his  own  self- 
revelation  in  his  children.  The  fact  of  creation 
cannot  be  divorced  from  the  idea  of  worth. 


1  Shelley's  Complete  Poetical  Works.    Boston,  Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 
1901.     Poem,  "To  a  Skylark." 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  97 

1.  The  production  of  character  requires  cir- 
cumstances of  struggle,  disappointment,  and 
care,  for  only  amid  these  conditions  are  those 
quahties  developed  which  life  teaches  us  to 
regard  as  of  permanent  worth.  2.  Each  indi- 
vidual is  a  creator,  and  living  in  a  world  the 
plan  of  which  is  not  fully  revealed,  he  will 
mistake  for  good  that  which  is  worthless,  or 
even  injurious,  and  in  the  exercise  of  free- 
dom ofttimes  be  tempted  into  paths  of  rebel- 
lion. 

This  answer  is  not  intended  to  silence  all 
puzzles  involved  in  the  problem  of  evil.  Our 
knowledge  at  best  is  exceedingly  fragmentary 
and  imperfect.  But  if  we  could  stand  at  the 
center  of  things,  and  see  life  in  its  complete- 
ness, we  would  doubtless  find  that  the  shadow 
of  evil  is  cast  by  the  presence  of  good. 

Then  let  us  take  heart  since  Divine  Love 
reigns.  Man  may  have  sinned,  but  with  his 
sin  his  redemption  has  come.  Sin  is  not  a 
trifling  thing,  and  persisted  in  it  can  result 
only  in  disaster  for  the  transgressor;  but  it  is 
not  the  Father's  will  that  one  of  the  least  of 
these  little  ones  shall  perish.  The  goal  toward 
which  God  works  is  the  establishment  of 
harmony  throughout  all  his  kingdom.  Fear 
not  but  that  this  end  will  ultimately  be  accom- 
plished.    The  mountains  may  depart  and  the 


98  FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

hills  be  removed,  but  the  kingdom  of  love  shall 
not  fail  of  its  purpose  until  the 

**  .  .  .  one  far-off  divine  event 
Toward  which  the  whole  creation  moves" 


is  reahzed. 


Take  heart!  the  Waster  builds  again — 

A  charmed  hfe  old  Goodness  hath; 
The  tares  may  perish,  but  the  grain 

Is  not  for  death. 
God  works  in  all  things;  all  ooey 

His  first  propulsion  from  the  night: 
Wake  thou  and  watch!  the  world  is  gray 
With  morning  light  !"i 


^Whittier*8  Complete  Works.   Boston,  Houghton  MifHin  Company.    1894. 
Poem,  "The  Reformer." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM 

There  is  no  greater  word  in  our  language 
than  the  term  "freedom."  For  the  idea  which 
it  represents  men  have  been  ready  to  sacrifice 
themselves  in  every  age.  It  is  the  desire  of 
every  heart  and  the  ideal  of  every  people. 
And  yet,  strangely  enough,  no  word  in  our 
language  has  been  so  persistently  misunder- 
stood. Jesus  aroused  the  indignation  of  the 
Jew  of  the  first  century  by  offering  to  point 
him  the  way  to  freedom.  "We  be  Abraham's 
seed,  and  were  never  in  bondage  to  any  man: 
how  say  est  thou.  Ye  shall  be  free?"  The 
spirit  of  the  twentieth  century  evidences  no 
better  understanding  of  the  nature  and  means 
of  attainment  of  that  which  Jesus  offered  to 
the  Jew. 


It  has  been  the  common  judgment  of  man 
that  the  bondage  of  life  is  due  to  external 
conditions,  and  therefore  freedom  is  to  be 
found  in  independence.  This  judgment  has 
prompted  his  endeavor  to  escape  the  domina- 

99 


100        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

tion  of  nature  and  the  empire  of  his  fellows. 
Under  its  inspiration  the  foundations  of  civ- 
ilization have  been  laid,  with  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge  and  the  growth  of  democ- 
racy. But  while  this  judgment  has  vastly 
increased  the  range  of  life,  it  is  only  partially 
true.  Freedom  is  impossible  so  long  as  ig- 
norance leaves  man  a  prey  to  the  forces  of 
nature,  or  tyranny  holds  him  in  servitude. 
But  emancipation  from  these  powers  still 
leaves  unanswered  the  question,  Who  shall  a 
man's  master  be.^  One  may  have  accom- 
plished a  high  degree  of  independence  of  exter- 
nal authority,  and  still  be  under  the  necessity 
of  determining  by  what  law  he  shall  live. 
For  the  battleground  of  freedom  hes  within  a 
man's  own  life,  and  the  ultimate  goal,  as  Jesus 
indicated,  is  not  to  win  independence  of  the 
forces  without,  but  to  subdue  the  foes  within. 
That  which  distinguishes  man  from  the  brute 
and  lifts  him  out  of  the  realm  of  necessity  is 
his  ability  to  reflect  upon  the  life  of  impulse 
and  view  it  in  relation  to  a  larger  good.  The 
animal  acts  always  from  impulse.  If  hungry, 
he  snatches;  if  angry,  he  destroys.  It  is  given 
to  man  to  check  impulse  and  bring  it  under 
the  law  of  the  higher  self.  This  ability  to 
stand  above  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  above 
the  entire  impulsive  life,  is  man's  prerogative. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM   101 

It  constitutes  him  a  moral  being.  To  say  that 
man  is  a  moral  being  is  to  say  that  he  is  a 
creature  of  impulse,  but  also  that  he  is  a 
personality  which  stands  above  the  life  of 
impulse,  criticizes  it,  and  legislates  concerning 
it.  The  extent  to  which  the  personality  has 
gained  control  constitutes  character.  Char- 
acter is  nature  disciplined.  Character  is  co- 
ordination, complete  and  continuous  self-mas- 
tery. The  man  without  character  is  the  man 
whose  sensibilities  are  unorganized,  in  whom 
one  impulse  controls  conduct.  When  the  cold 
wind  blows  he  becomes  irritated;  when  ap- 
pealed to  by  appetite  or  passion  he  yields  to 
the  sway  of  sense.  Such  a  man  is  a  slave,  a 
slave  to  his  lower  self.  Long  ago  Plato  spoke 
of  the  beast  in  human  nature  under  whose 
sway  every  folly  and  crime  is  committed.  So 
long  as  this  monster  remains  undisciplined 
life  has  failed  of  freedom,  even  though  the 
balmiest  external  conditions  have  been  secured. 
The  task  of  life,  then,  is  to  establish  the 
control  of  personality  over  the  lower  self. 
That  this  is  not  easy  may  be  seen  from  the 
number  of  failures  that  occur  along  life's  way. 
Man  is  always  in  trouble  by  reason  of  his 
ignorance  and  weakness.  He  wrecks  his  health 
through  excess,  his  happiness  through  folly, 
his  soul  through  sin.     One  of  the  tragedies  of 


102        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

life  is  instanced  by  the  number  of  men  of 
knowledge  and  high  endowment  whose  hopes 
have  been  wrecked  by  the  tyranny  of  passion. 
Here  is  Robert  Burns,  great-souled  Burns,  who 
writes  one  day  to  a  friend:  "By  Babel's  streams 
I  have  sat  and  wept,  almost  ever  since  I  wrote 
you  last.  ...  I  close  my  eyes  in  misery,  and 
open  them  without  hope.  .  .  .  God  have  mercy 
upon  me!  A  poor,  damned,  incautious,  duped, 
unfortunate  fool!  The  sport,  the  miserable 
victim,  of  rebellious  pride,  hypochondriac  imag- 
ination, agonizing  sensibility,  and  bedlam  pas- 
sions."^ And  somehow,  although  perhaps  in 
an  exaggerated  form,  he  strikes  off  the  expe- 
rience of  us  all.  "Oh,  wretched  man  that  I 
am!  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of 
this  death.?" 

II 

Man's  failure  in  the  fight  for  freedom  has 
been  largely  due  to  ignorance.  There  are  some, 
it  is  true,  who  have  never  set  themselves  to 
the  task  of  subduing  the  baser  passions,  but 
their  number  is  few.  Most  cases  of  failure  in 
this  regard  are  instances  of  a  losing  fight. 
Aware  of  the  danger  of  an  evil  habit,  the  first 
impulse  is  to  attempt  to  inhibit  it — an  attempt 
that  always  ends  in  failure.    For  in  fixing  the 

I  The  General  Correspondence  of  Robert  Burns. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM   103 

thought  upon  a  sin  to  suppress  it  you  merely 
hypnotize  yourself  with  it,  and  as  a  result  the 
sin  is  greatly  strengthened.  To  win  freedom 
from  a  tendency  toward  evil,  you  must  for- 
get it  by  losing  yourself  in  some  larger 
interest. 

This  is  a  general  principle  of  life.  You  can- 
not win  health  by  thinking  continually  of 
yourself  and  your  ills.  You  must  forget  your- 
self in  some  work  that  is  pleasure  and  some 
recreation  that  is  joyous.  The  same  is  true 
of  happiness.  J.  S.  Mill  pointed  out  long  ago 
that  one  can  win  happiness  only  by  aiming 
at  something  else.  This  is  known  in  ethics  as 
the  Paradox  of  Hedonism.  A  boy  goes  out  on 
the  ball  field  seeking  a  good  time.  If  he  thinks 
only  of  the  fun  he  desires,  he  will  miss  a  good 
time.  If  he  loses  himself  in  the  game,  he  will 
come  away  to  find  that  he  has  accomplished 
his  desire.  It  is  not  otherwise  with  character. 
You  cannot  achieve  character  by  saying:  "Go 
to!  I  will  now  throttle  this  passion,  root  out 
this  habit,  and  build  character."  Character 
is  not  won  that  way.  You  must  lose  yourself 
in  some  cause  that  is  big  enough  to  ehcit  your 
best  effort,  some  interest  sufficient  to  com- 
mand your  attention.  He  therefore  who 
promises  to  save  men  from  sin,  must  offer 
such  a  cause  and  such  an  interest. 


104       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

III 

Jesus  presents  this  larger  cause  and  broader 
interest.  He  represents  the  beauty  of  per- 
sonahty  and  the  worthiness  of  it,  so  that  in 
his  presence  man  is  forever  shamed.  In  the 
love  of  him  all  baser  interests  are  blotted  out 
and  the  values  of  character  become  the  chief 
object  of  desire,  for  the  life  of  Jesus  as  the 
revelation  of  what  man  ought  to  be  constitutes 
a  court  from  which  there  is  no  appeal.  Once 
he  is  known,  all  other  interests  are  brought 
for  judgment  before  the  bar  of  his  example. 
There  is  henceforth  one  law,  at  once  the  voice 
of  Jesus  and  the  voice  of  one's  inner  self,  de- 
manding unqualified  obedience. 

But  this  law,  as  the  essential  principle  of 
one's  nature,  is  also  the  will  of  the  Eternal, 
and  therefore  in  yielding  to  it  the  individual 
comes  into  union  with  the  Eternal.  Herein 
lies  the  source  and  spring  of  freedom.  Little 
has  been  accomplished  if  the  effort  after 
liberty  stops  with  a  crushing  recognition  of 
what  one  ought  to  be.  The  law  is  to  be  an 
emancipator,  not  an  enslaver.  The  fact  of 
human  weakness  bears  witness  how  necessary 
is  this  union  with  the  Eternal  if  man  is  to 
fulfill  the  purpose  of  his  being.  Through 
obedience  to  the  law  of  the  larger  life  he  opens 
his  soul  to  the  streams  of  the  divine,  which 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM   105 

become  within  him  a  new  power,  a  new  capa- 
bility, and  a  new  hope.  Thereby  the  forces  of 
destruction  are  counteracted,  weakness  is  em- 
powered, and  largeness  of  life  becomes  possible. 
Ours  is  a  world  in  which  marvels  have  re- 
sulted from  the  contact  of  personalities.  A 
word  from  Napoleon  could  restore  courage  in 
the  heart  of  an  army.  Who  can  measure  the 
possibilities  of  a  life  when  it  comes  under  the 
touch  of  Jesus  Christ  .^^  It  is  not  easy  to  be 
good.  The  climb  of  life  is  steep;  there  are 
obstacles  in  the  way,  and  the  will  is  all  too 
feeble.  There  is  an  effort,  however,  that  suc- 
ceeds, not  because  of  itself  alone  but  because 
of  the  new  life-force  to  which  it  may  lay  claim. 
Before  the  will  enfeebled  and  enslaved  by 
sin  Jesus  stands  with  the  promise,  "The  Son 
will  make  you  free."  What  though  the  past 
has  left  a  legacy  of  failure.?  ^Tiat  though  the 
present  reveals  incapacity  by  reason  of  the 
death  of  faculties  of  the  soul.^^  "I  am  come 
that  ye  may  have  life,  and  that  ye  may  have 
it  more  abundantly."  This  is  the  promise. 
"To  as  many  as  received  him,  to  them  gave 
he  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God." 

IV 

Here,    then,    is   the   principle   of   Christian 
liberty. 


106       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

1.  Man  is  free  only  to  choose  the  form 
of  his  obedience.  If  human  life  has  a  meaning, 
this  involves  a  law  by  which  that  meaning 
may  be  realized,  and  that  law  is  revealed,  in 
the  effort  to  live,  as  the  way  to  a  full  life. 
We  may  choose  that  law  or  follow  our  own 
impulses,  but  in  either  case  we  are  under 
authority.  The  instrument  of  self -direction  in 
personality  is  the  will.  A  lawless  will  is  a 
misnomer.  As  a  function  of  personality  the 
will  must  be  true  to  the  law  of  its  own  nature. 
It  cannot  transcend  itself  nor  deny  its  own 
claims.  We  escape  the  principle  of  self-direc- 
tion only  when  we  cease  to  be  ourselves. 
From  the  grain  of  sand  to  the  farthest  star 
freedom  lies  in  obedience  to  law;  all  else  is 
disorder  and  self-destruction.  Man  is  no 
exception  to  this  universal  rule.  The  only 
liberty  that  man  can  know  is  the  ability  to 
live  out  unhindered  the  essential  purpose  of 
his  own  being. 

2,  True  freedom  is  an  achievement.  It  be- 
gins with  the  first  recognition  of  the  claims 
of  personality.  It  grows  with  the  increase  of 
the  control  of  personality.  It  is  never  com- 
plete, for  the  process  of  the  unfolding  of 
personality  is  limitless.  This  is  the  task  that 
is  ever  before  us.  Every  attainment  is  but 
the  scaffolding  to  a  higher  reach  of  attainment. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM   107 

We  are  ever  to  seek  to  surpass  the  best  in  us, 
and  press  on  in  hope  and  assurance  toward 
the  greater  possibilities  before  us,  confident 
that  that  power  which  has  sustained  us  will 
see  us  through  to  the  end.  "Not  that  I  have 
already  obtained,  or  am  already  made  perfect: 
but  I  press  on,  if  so  be  that  I  may  apprehend 
that  for  which  also  I  was  apprehended  by 
Christ  Jesus." 

3.  In  the  effort  after  freedom,  the  material 
of  the  lower  self  is  not  to  be  destroyed;  it  is 
to  be  transformed.  The  good  man  is  not  the 
passionless  man.  The  baser  stuff  of  sense  is 
the  weight  by  which  we  rise.  As  the  kite 
ascends  by  reason  of  the  resistance  of  the  air, 
so  the  human  spirit  attains  its  climb  through 
those  very  limitations  that  hamper  it.  We 
may  not  be  ready  to  admit  Francis  Thomp- 
son's claim  that  imperfections  are  the  coloring 
in  the  perfect  picture,  but  undoubtedly  they 
are  the  colors  out  of  which  the  picture  is  made. 
It  need  not  be  the  cause  of  discouragement 
that  the  pulse  of  passion  is  strong.  This  is 
a  reservoir  of  force  waiting  to  be  harnessed 
to  a  worthy  end.  Nay,  more,  because  of  the 
unity  of  personality  it  is  the  very  force  that 
being  redirected  becomes  the  power  of  will  and 
the  strength  of  personality.  Passion  uncon- 
trolled  and  irregulated  constitutes  a  danger, 


108       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

but   passion   controlled   furnishes    the   oppor- 
tunity, test,  and  measure  of  virtue. 

4.  Since  the  law  of  the  higher  self  and  the 
will  of  God  are  one,  the  ultimate  goal  of  life 
is  the  same  for  all.  The  aim  of  each  is  to 
secure  his  own  growth  and  development,  but 
that  aim  is  common  to  all.  And  here  we  touch 
the  basis  for  a  free  society — a  community  of 
individuals  each  seeking  a  common  aim  and 
laboring  to  make  conditions  favorable  to  the 
attainment  of  that  aim  by  all.  "Act,"  says 
Kant,  "so  as  to  use  humanity,  whether  in  your 
own  person  or  in  the  person  of  another,  always 
as  an  end,  never  as  merely  a  means."  This 
is  the  first  principle  of  democracy.  It  is  the 
fatal  mistake  of  both  the  individual  and  of 
society  that  humanity  is  treated  as  a  means. 
When  all  men  everywhere  come  to  regard 
human  hfe  as  of  supreme  worth,  and  seek  for 
themselves  and  for  all  others  the  values  of 
personality,  then  shall  begin  that  age  of  free- 
dom so  long  prophesied. 

V 

The  lessons  involved  here  are  of  perennial 
importance.  What  is  the  malady  at  the  heart 
of  our  civilization  to-day.?  Let  me  quote  the 
answer  of  one  serious  observer.^     "The  steady 

1  Herbert  Croly,  Disordered  Christianity,  The  New  Republic,  December 
31.  1919. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM   109 

expansion  of  secular  knowledge  is  the  dom- 
inating fact  in  the  lives  of  the  Christian  peoples. 
It  is  exercising  an  ever  more  complete  and 
irresistible  authority  over  both  the  conduct 
and  the  conscience  of  mankind.  But  its  au- 
thority is  devoid  of  moral  sanction.  The  new 
knowledge  has  done  little  or  nothing  to  enhance 
or  to  liberate  human  life  as  a  whole.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  vesting  the  moral  ownership 
of  incalculably  formidable  engines  of  power  in 
particular  classes  and  nations  whose  special 
interests  are  opposed  to  general  human  ful- 
fillment. If  the  secularization  of  knowledge 
continues,  it  will  ultimately  wreck  civilization." 
There  is  rebellion  to-day  against  recognized 
authority  in  society.  We  see  it  in  politics,  in 
industry,  in  religion.  "During  the  war,"  said 
one  labor  leader,  "they  taught  us  to  be  lions' 
whelps,  and  now  they  want  us  to  subside 
quietly  into  beasts  of  burden.  We  shall  never 
do  it."  There  is  a  real  danger  here.  So  far 
as  conditions  make  difficult  the  living  of  life, 
they  ought  to  be  changed.  But  we  must  not 
forget  that  external  conditions  are  not  the 
sole  determining  factor  in  a  man's  life.  In- 
deed, the  very  crux  of  the  problem  of  freedom 
is  absence  of  determination  by  anything  out- 
side oneself.  The  life  of  the  animal  is  deter- 
mined by  conditions;  man,  on  the  other  hand, 


110       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

lives  within  the  world  of  his  own  character. 
You  may  preach  economic  theory  until  your 
hair  is  white  and  men  still  remain  slaves  in 
their  lives.  What  the  world  to-day  needs, 
primarily,  is  not  a  new  social  order  so  much 
as  a  wider  knowledge  of  the  ideal  of  life,  and 
a  more  general  recognition  of  those  moral 
sanctions  through  which  alone  humanity  as  a 
whole  can  find  true  freedom. 


CHAPTER  Vin 
WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 

What  is  truth?  There  is  no  question  more 
ancient  or  more  essential  than  this.  It  was 
asked  in  the  Egyptian  temple;  it  is  still  the 
query  in  the  modern  university.  The  reason 
for  this  unfinished  inquiry  lies  in  the  fact 
that  it  touches  the  whole  range  of  human 
life.  In  the  common  mind  truth  is  a  matter 
of  mere  verbal  accuracy,  but  in  reality  the 
term  has  a  much  deeper  significance.  It  repre- 
sents the  substance  and  content  of  the  rational 
and  moral  life.  There  is  no  good  that  exceeds 
it.  "The  inquiry  of  truth,"  says  Bacon,  "which 
is  the  love-making  or  wooing  of  it — the  knowl- 
edge of  truth,  which  is  the  presence  of  it — the 
belief  of  truth,  which  is  the  enjoying  of  it — 
is  the  sovereign  good  of  human  nature."^ 

Yet  strangely  enough,  no  question  has  been 
more  generally  ignored,  and  to  this  ignorance 
may  be  traced  much  of  the  tragedy  of  human 
life. 


I  The  Philosophical  Works  of  Francis  Bacon,  p.  736.    New  York,  E.  P. 
Dutton  &  Company.    1905. 

Ill 


112        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

"O  purblind  race  of  miserable  men. 
How  many  among  us  at  this  very  hour 
Do  forge  a  lifelong  trouble  for  ourselves, 
By  taking  true  for  false  and  false  for  true!" 

What  is  the  source  of  the  disappointment,  de- 
feat, and  shame,  that  weigh  down  the  lives 
of  individuals?  In  brief  it  is  Tennyson's  answer, 
they  take  the  true  for  false,  the  false  for  true. 
This  is  the  story  of  Esau  and  Absalom,  of 
Pilate  and  Judas.  Wisdom  says,  "Choose  this; 
it  is  not  so  pleasant  now,  but  it  is  the  greater 
good."  No,  this  seems  better.  And  so  for  the 
price  of  a  moment's  pleasure,  the  real  values 
of  life  are  spurned.  Here  is  a  man  in  the 
prime  of  his  years,  but  the  hand  of  death  is 
upon  him.  He  is  walking  under  the  shadow 
of  his  own  folly.  Nature  and  society  both 
combined  to  give  him  a  good  start,  his  life 
might  have  been  useful  and  happy;  but  he 
"forged  a  lifelong  trouble  for  himself."  He 
believed  the  true  worth  of  life  was  to  be  found 
in  self -gratification,  so  he  courted  self  and 
played  with  passion,  and  thought  it  good; 
and  now  too  late  he  wakens  to  his  mistake, 
for  there  is  a  sovereignty  in  the  truth  that 
cannot  be  evaded.  You  may  ignore  it,  or 
reject  its  claim,  nevertheless  you  must  answer 
to  it.  As  George  Eliot  puts  it:  *Tt  is  the  truth 
that  commands  you.    And  you  cannot  escape 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH?  113 

it.  Either  you  must  obey  it,  and  it  will  lead 
you,  or  you  must  disobey  it,  and  it  will  hang 
on  you  with  the  weight  of  a  chain  which  you 
will  drag  forever." 

I 

But  what  is  truth.?  Have  we  a  right  to 
censure  a  man  for  his  folly  until  we  can  offer 
an  answer  to  the  question.'^  There  is  no  truth, 
says  one;  all  knowledge  is  relative.  Just  as 
light  and  heavy,  cold  and  heat,  plenty  and 
want,  are  relative  terms,  so  are  truth  and 
error.  Water  boils  at  212°  Fahrenheit;  Hquid 
air  boils  at  312°  below  zero.  You  place  water 
on  a  fire  to  boil;  you  place  liquid  air  on  a  cake 
of  ice  and  it  boils.  The  power  derived  from 
liquid  air  is  simply  steam  generated  by  the 
temperature  at  which  we  live.  A  coin  on  the 
hand  is  warm  or  cold  according  to  the  tem- 
perature of  the  skin.  So  it  is  with  all  expe- 
rience. Knowledge  comes  through  opposites, 
and  is  relative  to  the  range  and  degree  of 
opposition.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  absolute 
heat,  absolute  weight,  absolute  truth.  All 
truth,  says  Nietzsche,  is  relative  to  man's 
power.  That  which  suits  his  purpose  is  true; 
that  which  is  opposed  to  it  is  false. 

But  grant  that  all  knowledge  is  relative,  yet 
one  may  be  honest  in  reporting  his  experiences. 
Truth,  then,  is  the  correct  statement  of  fact. 


114        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

In  some  regards  this  claim  has  a  vital  im- 
portance. There  is  nothing  more  needed  than 
sincerity  among  men,  that  one's  outward 
deportment  shall  be  in  accord  with  his  thought 
and  intent.  But  in  the  scientific  sense,  the 
sense  in  which  it  is  ordinarily  taken,  this  claim 
is  confronted  with  difficulty.  Our  experiences 
are  seldom  alike;  no  two  men  look  upon  exactly 
the  same  world.  And  if  it  be  said  that  the 
consensus  of  judgment  makes  fact,  this  too 
must  be  recognized  as  uncertain.  One  genera- 
tion declares  that  the  sun  moves  round  the 
earth,  another  that  the  earth  moves  round 
the  sun.  Humanity  is  constantly  revising  its 
judgments  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  life. 

Truth,  then,  is  conviction.  At  least  we  may 
rely  upon  those  beliefs  that  come  to  us  with 
immediate  certainty.  But  conviction  has  shown 
itself  to  be  subject  to  enlightenment.  Nothing 
has  so  marred  the  story  of  human  progress 
as  false  conviction.  From  the  Carthaginian 
placing  his  child  upon  the  red-hot  lap  of 
Moloch,  to  the  Indian  fakir;  from  the  thumb- 
screw and  the  rack,  to  the  present-day  in- 
justices born  of  social  hysteria,  conviction  has 
proven  itself  a  dangerous  guide. 

But  has  there  not  been  conserved  out  of 
the  centuries  of  human  history  a  residue  of 
knowledge    upon    which    we    may    all    agree  .^ 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH?  115 

Truth  is  tradition.  Alas!  it  is  just  here  that 
we  do  not  agree.  Not  only  do  many  deny  the 
authority  of  the  past  over  the  present,  but 
there  is  no  unanimous  understanding  of  that 
which  the  voice  of  the  past  conveys.  Who 
is  to  choose  between  the  hundred  warring 
creeds  through  which  tradition  is  mediated  to 
us  to-day?  Or  why  should  we  choose?  The 
world  is  older  with  each  generation,  and  ought 
to  present  new  and  larger  views  of  the  nature 
and  meaning  of  life. 

II 

There  is  an  old  story  from  the  closing  days 
of  Jesus'  life  that  is  suggestive  here.  Jesus 
was  brought  before  Pontius  Pilate  by  the  Jews 
charged  with  claiming  to  be  a  king.  This 
charge,  because  of  its  political  character,  im- 
presses the  governor,  who  enters  into  a  dis- 
cussion with  the  prisoner.  As  a  Roman, 
Pilate's  conception  of  kingship  is  that  of 
physical  dominion.  The  mission  of  Rome  was 
to  rule  and  command  by  force.  This  concep- 
tion is  back  of  the  question  he  addresses  to 
Jesus,  and  gives  to  it  a  touch  of  sarcasm,  "Art 
thou  the  King  of  the  Jews?"  But  Jesus  dis- 
claims the  purpose  to  establish  a  kingdom 
of  physical  force.  "My  kingdom  is  not  of 
this  world:  if  my  kingdom  were  of  this  world, 


116       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

then  would  my  servants  fight,  that  I  should 
not  be  delivered  to  the  Jews:  but  now  is  my 
kingdom  not  from  hence." 

"Art  thou  a  king  then?"  What  other  basis 
can  kingship  have?  What  other  foundation  is 
possible  for  sovereignty?  "Thou  say  est  that  I 
am  king.  To  this  end  was  I  born,  and  for  this 
cause  came  I  into  the  world,  that  I  should 
bear  witness  unto  the  truth."  Ah!  truth — 
the  question  is  shifted.  This  man  is  not  a 
rival  of  Caesar;  he  is  a  new  teacher.  He  means 
to  conquer  by  the  power  of  ideas.  At  once 
the  intellectual  history  of  that  age  passes 
before  Pilate's  mind.  He  sees  the  whole 
philosophical  development  of  the  period,  aim- 
ing to  discover  and  present  the  truth,  termi- 
nating in  skepticism  and  despair  of  knowledge. 
Here  is  another  wild  enthusiast  offering  to 
reveal  the  undiscoverable.  With  a  half-sarcasm, 
the  half-sad  exclamation  of  skepticism,  he 
answers,  "What  is  truth?" 

Here  Jesus  interposes  words  that  are  of  deep 
significance.  "Everyone  that  is  of  the  truth 
heareth  my  voice."  In  this  more  or  less 
enigmatic  statement  is  the  key  to  Pilate's 
question.  Notice  he  does  not  say,  everyone 
that  heareth  my  voice  is  of  the  truth.  Pilate 
was  wholly  mistaken.  Truth  is  not  a  matter 
of  ideas;  it  is  an   affair  of  life.     Ideas  are 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH?  117 

ever  open  to  debate;  there  is  nothing  final 
in  them.  Life  is  final.  Life  presents  an 
ultimate  standard  for  the  judgment  of  values. 
Therefore  Jesus  came  not  to  present  a  new 
system  of  ideas,  but  to  live  a  life.  Not  all  who 
heard  his  words  understood  that  life,  but  all 
who  grasped  his  ideal  of  life  saw  the  truth 
of  his  words.  "Everyone  that  is  of  the  truth 
heareth  my  voice." 

Ill 

If,  then,  the  consideration  of  truth  as  knowl- 
edge terminates  in  skepticism,  Jesus  offers  a 
new  line  of  approach  to  the  question.  With 
him  truth  is  not  impersonal,  scientific.  "I  am 
the  truth,"  In  the  implications  of  this  state- 
ment we  find  the  answer  to  our  question. 

1.  Truth  can  be  manifest  only  in  a  life. 
It  is  a  person,  living  in  the  relations  of  life, 
true  to  all  that  those  relations  require.  This 
is  the  foundation  of  all  shades  of  interpreta- 
tion of  the  term.  Verbal  accuracy,  conviction, 
the  true  representation  of  fact,  are  manifesta- 
tions of  an  underlying  personality,  and  acquire 
their  value  from  the  person  which  they  express. 
Jesus  could  not  have  answered  Pilate's  ques- 
tion in  words.  Words  are  of  worth  only  as 
the  expression  of  character.  Therefore  Jesus 
lived  a  life,  and  his  words  were  but  to  make 
plain    the   meaning   of    that    life,      He   said; 


118        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

"Service  is  the  law  of  life.  Suffering  is  the 
law  of  service.  Love  is  the  first  principle  of 
being.  Greatness  and  goodness  are  one."  Are 
these  statements  true?  Whether  they  are  or 
not  depends  on  whether  the  application  of  the 
principles  stated  to  human  relationships  con- 
tributes worth  to  man's  being. 

It  is  significant  that  the  Greek  word  dXrjdeia, 
ordinarily  translated  "truth,"  usually  stands 
in  the  New  Testament  for  "righteousness." 
That  is,  the  meaning  of  the  term,  as  conceived 
by  the  New  Testament  writer,  is  broader  than 
intellectual  rectitude;  it  includes  rightness  of 
conduct  as  well.  In  fact,  intellectual  rightness, 
or  truth,  is  considered  as  only  one  aspect  of 
that  moral  disposition  which  the  term  de- 
notes, and  upon  which  truth  depends.  Now, 
in  the  terminology  of  the  New  Testament, 
"righteousness"  has  a  very  definite  meaning. 
It  is  that  disposition  of  life  that  takes  as  its 
norm  the  will  of  the  Eternal.  Truth,  therefore, 
as  here  employed,  means  nothing  else  than 
the  advance  of  life  toward  its  own  perfection. 
This  reflects  the  significance  of  Jesus'  state- 
ment when  he  said,  "I  am  the  truth."  In 
him  the  life  of  righteousness  is  seen  complete. 

The  border-line  between  truth  and  right  is 
indefinite  at  best.  Wliat  is  truth,  and  what 
is  right?     Right  applies  to  conduct  measured 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH?  119 

by  a  norm.  Truth  refers  to  the  life,  which  is 
at  once  the  source  and  standard  of  conduct. 
It  is  the  ideal  of  being  that  man  shall  con- 
stitute himself  a  full  personality.  That  ideal 
is  implicit  in  us  all.  It  forms  the  norm  for  all 
judgment.  An  act  is  right  which  expresses 
the  fuller  personality,  or  contributes  to  its 
fulfillment.  The  difference  between  truth  and 
right,  then,  is  the  distinction  between  a  life 
and  its  expression.  This  identity  of  meaning 
in  the  New  Testament  usage  explains  the 
presence  of  "truth"  rather  than  "right"  in 
such  passages  as  John  3.  21,  "He  that  doeth 
truth  Cometh  to  the  light";  also  1  Cor.  13.  6, 
"Rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in 
the  truth." 

2.  Only  as  we  live  the  life  of  righteousness, 
can  we  hope  to  understand  the  meaning  of 
truth.  "He  that  is  of  the  truth,  heareth  my 
voice."  "Only  he,"  says  Lotze,  "for  whom 
truth  is  true  can  recognize  it  as  truth.  .  .  .  The 
understanding  can  find  truth  only  where  it 
sees  the  content  of  its  thought  agreeing  with 
a  standard  which  it  carries  within  itself."^ 
Of  old  it  was  said  of  Jesus  that  when  he  should 
appear,  to  many  he  would  be  without  form 
or  comeliness  and  there  would  be  no  beauty 
about  him  that  they  should  desire  him.    Right- 

1  Lotze,  Microcosmus,  ii,  698. 


120        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

eousness  is  never  desirable  to  the  unrighteous, 
nor  purity  to  the  impure.  Rectitude  of  life  is 
necessary  to  rectitude  of  thought.  "It  is  more 
blessed  to  give  than  to  receive."  You  cannot 
prove  that  proposition  to  a  selfish  man.  If 
he  declares  it  more  blessed  to  get  than  to  give, 
you  are  silenced;  he  is  not  of  the  truth.  Purity 
is  a  beatitude  only  to  the  heart  that  has  aban- 
doned its  evil  passions.  This  fact  reveals  the 
central  problem  in  the  effort  after  the  world's 
evangelization.  How  shall  we  get  men  to 
forsake  that  which  they  love  and  accept  that 
for  which  they  have  no  desire.'^  At  best  the 
acceptance  of  the  life  of  righteousness  is  a 
venture  of  faith.  We  put  the  life  of  virtue 
to  the  test  and  find  it  supremely  good.  In 
the  very  nature  of  things  this  could  not  be 
otherwise.  Since  truth  is  life,  and  knowledge 
comes  through  experience,  there  is  no  means 
by  which  one  may  learn  that  righteousness  is 
desirable  except  by  putting  it  to  the  test. 
And  since  the  life  of  righteousness  as  the  will 
of  the  Eternal  is  also  our  truer  self,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  as  to  the  verdict  when  once  it 
has  been  tried. 

3.  There  is  a  commentary  on  this  statement 
in  a  recent  article  on  the  Foundation  of  the 
State.  ^     What  is  the  ground  of  the  authority 

1  David  Jay-nc  Hill,  The  Foundation  of  the  State.     Reprinted  from  The 
Fra,  November,  1910,  by  permission. 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH?  121 

of  the  state?  One  answers,  "The  power  to 
compel  obedience."  No,  that  is  the  philosophy 
that  might  makes  right,  a  philosophy  we  in 
America,  at  least,  disclaim.  Obedience  is  not 
duty.  Furthermore,  if  any  group  of  persons 
in  the  state  are  strong  enough  to  resist,  they 
are  under  no  obligation  to  obey.  Well,  then, 
the  authority  of  the  state  rests  in  the  will  of 
the  people.  But  what  authority  have  ten 
people  that  one  does  not  have?  Or  what 
right  have  ten  to  impose  their  will  upon  one, 
if  that  one  does  not  wish  it?  What,  then,  is 
the  foundation  of  the  state?  There  is  in 
every  one  of  us  a  sense  of  justice,  and  with 
it  a  corresponding  sense  of  obligation.  This 
lifts  a  man  above  personal  preference  and 
makes  him  capable  of  society.  This  is  the 
soul  of  which  the  state  is  the  body.  Not  he 
that  heareth  the  voice  of  the  state  is  of  the 
state.  He  may  harken  through  fear,  and  be 
an  outlaw  in  his  heart.  But  he  that  is  of  the 
state  heareth  the  voice  of  the  state. 

IV 

Certain  far-reaching  implications  follow  from 
this  view  of  truth.  First,  it  suggests  that 
ultimate  reality  is  personal.  Just  as  thought, 
word,  and  deed  are  instruments  for  express- 
ing the  inner  life  of  man,  so  the  world  of  things 


122        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

is  the  means  of  expression  of  an  underlying 
personal  life,  which  is  its  ground  and  support. 
Our  thought  and  purpose  manifest  themselves 
in  and  through  spatial  objects  which  we 
create,  such  as  houses,  gardens,  and  harvests. 
In  like  manner  the  spatial  world  as  a  whole 
is  the  revelation  of  a  hidden  thought  and  will. 
Philosophy  has  always  drawn  an  inadequate 
distinction  between  truth  and  reality,  as  if 
truth  were  something  external  to  or  above 
existing  things,  when  it  is  present  only  in  the 
thought  of  some  thinker  while  he  thinks  or 
in  the  action  of  some  being  while  he  acts. 
Truth  cannot  exist  independently  of  being;  it  is 
real  only  as  the  nature  and  habitude  of  being. 
This  distinction  has  led  to  much  loose  think- 
ing in  the  endeavor  to  interpret  the  nature  of 
reality  as  a  whole.  Reality,  we  are  told,  is 
universal  life,  power  not  ourselves,  impersonal 
will,  unconscious  reason.  But  these  are  all 
empty  phrases,  names  for  nothingness.  As 
Borden  P.  Bowne  has  said,  "Intelligence  and 
reason  are  such  only  as  they  are  guided  by 
ends;  and  a  guidance  by  ends  means  nothing 
except  as  those  ends  are  present  in  conscious- 
ness as  ideal  aims."^  Unless  we  are  ready  to 
adopt  a  crass   materialism  in  our  conception 

» Borden  P.  Bowne,  Philosophy  of  Theism,  p.  127.     New  York,  Harper 
&  Brothers.     1887. 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH?  123 

of  ultimate  reality,  a  consistent  logic  forces  us 
to  think  of  it  as  personal. 

Any  interpretation  of  nature  is  of  necessity 
a  product  of  our  own  thought.  That  is,  it  is 
a  construct,  formed  through  the  application 
to  the  world  of  appearance  of  the  laws  of  the 
mind.  But  if  that  construct  is  to  have  valid- 
ity, the  laws  of  thought  must  also  be  the 
laws  of  nature.  The  possibility  of  truth  lies 
in  our  ability  to  reduce  the  phenomena  of 
nature  to  an  intelligible  order,  and  that  order 
can  be  real  only  as  the  expression  of  intelli- 
gence. 

The  theory  of  evolution  was  supposed  for 
a  time  to  have  dispensed  with  personal  agency 
as  a  basis  of  reality,  by  substituting  for  it  the 
reign  of  law.  It  was  discovered  that  the 
whole  creation  is  not  only  ruled  by  law  but 
that  it  is  determined  by  law.  As  a  result,  law 
was  given  a  substantive  character,  and  set 
behind  the  world  of  things  as  its  cause  and 
suflScient  explanation.  But  a  more  candid 
inquiry  as  to  the  meaning  of  law  has  shown 
the  fallacy  of  this  position.  A  law  is  only  a 
description  of  the  process  by  which  an  agent 
works;  it  explains  nothing,  but  is  itself  in 
need  of  explanation.  It  is  truth  only  as  a 
statement  of  a  method  of  action. 

All  reality  is  an  eternal  spirit.     All  things 


1^4       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

that  appear  are  but  manifestations  of  the 
Eternal.  The  heavens  and  earth  are  a  mirror 
in  which  we  behold  the  Eternal  Goodness,  and 
discover  the  plan  he  is  working  to  fulfill. 
From  him  all  being  flows;  in  him  all  life  sub- 
sists. Nature  is  the  declaration  of  his  thought. 
Human  perception,  so  far  as  it  is  true,  is  the 
interpretation  of  the  thought  of  God,  for 
God  is  truth.  Effort  after  truth  is  effort 
after  God;  truth  acquired  is  God  possessed. 


The  discussion  leads  finally  to  a  practical 
question:  How  may  we  be  of  the  truth .^^  This 
is  the  ultimate  question  of  the  Christian  life. 
We  gain  excellence  here  as  in  the  pursuit  of 
any  art.  How  does  the  artist  win  perfection.'^ 
He  chooses  a  perfect  model,  and  copies  it 
until  he  grasps,  first  the  general  rules  involved 
in  its  production,  then  the  basic  principles. 
So  it  is  with  the  art  of  life.  Imitation  is  the 
first  law  of  progress  in  character.  It  is  the 
supreme  merit  of  Jesus  that  he  has  made 
known  to  us  the  truth  as  life.  The  perfecting 
of  humanity  consists  in  a  faithful  embodiment 
of  the  mind  and  life  of  Jesus.  It  is  a  law 
that  we  tend  to  become  like  that  with  which 
we  are  constantly  associated.  The  ancient 
Greeks  who  lived  daily  in  the  presence  of  the 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH?  125 

statue  of  Apollo  unconsciously  became  erect. 
As  we  contemplate  the  perfect  life  of  Jesus 
we  tend  to  become  like  him,  until  imitation 
grows  into  consecration.  "We  all,  with  un- 
veiled face,"  says  the  apostle,  "reflecting  as 
a  mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  are  transformed 
into  the  same  image  from  glory  to  glory,  even 
as  from  the  Lord  the  Spirit."  Jesus  is  the 
perfect  man — the  final  form  of  truth.  As  we 
follow  him  we  are  of  the  truth;  as  we  live  in 
him  the  meanings  of  life  become  plain. 


CHAPTER  IX 

IS  PERFECTION  POSSIBLE? 

Human  perfectibility  has  been  the  ideal  of 
every  religion.  The  Chinese  sage,  the  Greek 
philosopher,  the  Indian  yogi,  and  the  European 
Christian  all  agree  in  this,  that  man  ought 
to  attain  to  a  perfect  state.  These  teachers 
have  not  agreed  on  the  content  of  perfection, 
nor  the  path  by  which  it  is  to  be  won.  One 
would  reach  it  by  meditation,  another  by  edu- 
cation, still  a  third  by  inspiration;  but  all 
are  unanimous  in  the  claim  that  human  ex- 
cellence is  to  be  desired.  "Religion,"  says 
Borden  P.  Bowne,  "aims  at  the  perfect  and 
will  have  the  perfect  or  nothing."^  Even  the 
atheist  has  not  dissented  from  this  statement. 
Nietzsche  embodied  it  in  his  doctrine  of  the 
Superman.  From  the  beginning  the  vision  of 
the  perfect  man  has  floated  before  the  human 
mind. 

I 

Nothing  is  more  marvelous  than  that  this 
dogma  should  have  been  so  unanimously  ac- 

i  Borden  P.  Bowne,  Personaliim,  p.  293.      Boston,  Houghton  Mifflio 
Company.     1908. 

126 


IS  PERFECTION  POSSIBLE?        127 

cepted,  for  the  one  thing  quite  evident  is  the 
fact  of  man's  incompleteness.  Men  may  have 
lived  who  have  attained  complete  bodily  de- 
velopment, but  who  has  reached  the  fullness 
of  his  mental  and  moral  powers?  The  per- 
fect man,  in  whom  all  mental  and  moral 
capabilities  are  fully  realized,  is  far  before  us, 
if,  indeed,  he  has  broken  upon  the  vision  of 
some  of  us.  The  great  souls  of  history  repre- 
sent but  a  single  phase  of  the  ideal  life.  The 
saints  of  the  Bible   were  not  faultless  men. 

Is  perfection  possible.'^  What  perfection  can 
this  be?  Humanity  free  from  all  defect?  Lack 
of  infirmity  of  will  or  soul?  Is  not  all  human 
perfection  relative  to  our  limited  and  varying 
conditions?  We  do  not  expect  perfection  in 
a  fresco  as  in  a  painting,  in  a  piece  of  plaster 
work  as  in  a  frieze.  We  think  of  the  lily  as 
beautiful,  and  yet  in  the  tropics  it  grows  to 
be  many  feet  across,  and  with  the  most  delicate 
hue.  There  are  conditions  of  life  that  make 
it  inevitable  that  some  souls  should  be  dwarfed 
and,  struggling  up,  attain  little.  The  condi- 
tions are  adverse,  the  growth  is  slow,  the 
time  is  short,  the  goal  is  high.  Yet  ever  in 
the  mind  of  man  rings  this  challenge,  "Be 
ye  perfect,  for  your  Father  in  heaven  is 
perfect." 

The  conclusions  of  modern  science  have  re- 


128        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

acted  against  belief  in  the  possibility  of  attain- 
ing a  perfect  state.  Man  is  no  longer  con- 
sidered as  a  degeneration  from  a  primeval 
condition  of  excellence,  which  he  may  recover 
suddenly  by  the  triumph  of  divine  grace  in 
his  life.  He  is  a  personality  in  the  making. 
For  ages  he  has  been  fighting  his  way  up  from 
the  lower  levels  of  animality  to  a  diviner 
type  of  life.  Essentially  this  struggle  is  to 
constitute  himself  a  self-determining  being — 
to  bring  his  entire  nature  under  the  control 
of  the  ideal  of  reason.  Personality  emerges 
with  the  beginning  of  this  control  and  advances 
toward  perfection  as  control  increases.  It 
follows  that  perfection  can  be  conceived  no 
longer  as  faultlessness,  for  the  ideal  emerges 
with  the  development  of  personality,  and  al- 
ways runs  ahead  of  it.  No  human  being  ever 
realizes  his  ideal.  Where  there  is  ignorance 
mistakes  will  occur;  where  the  will  is  undis- 
ciplined hfe  will  fall  away  from  its  goal.  What 
we  are  is  at  best  only  a  fragmentary  repre- 
sentation of  what  we  know  we  ought  to  be. 

The  Christian  hfe  is  sometimes  defined  as 
an  identification  with  the  life  of  Jesus.  He 
has  set  before  the  believer  an  example  of 
excellence  which  all  are  expected  to  follow. 
The  goal  of  Christian  endeavor  is  to  embody 
in    character    and    service    the    example    and 


IS  PERFECTION  POSSIBLE?        129 

spirit  of  the  Master.  But  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  the  life  of  Jesus  immeasurably  tran- 
scends even  our  best  attainment.  The  holiest 
men  have  made  confession  of  this  fact.  After 
two  thousand  years  of  Christian  history,  Jesus 
still  stands  above  us  as  an  example  of  moral 
excellence  and  spiritual  being,  after  which 
we  may  ever  reach,  but  to  which  no  one  ever 
fully  attains. 

II 

If,  then,  we  cannot  attain  our  ideal,  in  what 
sense  is  perfection  possible.'^  Evidently,  the 
term  can  be  applied  to  man  only  in  a  relative 
sense,  except  as  it  refers  to  the  will  or  intent 
that  governs  the  life.  The  will  may  be  wholly 
turned  from  evil  toward  righteousness.  Such 
a  will  may  err  for  lack  of  knowledge,  or  be- 
cause of  inability  to  command  conditions; 
nevertheless  it  never  deviates  from  its  direc- 
tion, being  wholly  fixed  upon  God. 

There  is  no  Christian  teacher  who  has 
spoken  with  clearer  insight  upon  Christian 
perfection  than  John  Wesley,  the  founder  of 
Methodism.  Wesley  made  this  doctrine  cen- 
tral to  his  thought.  The  significant  thing  in 
his  teaching  in  this  regard  is  the  emphasis  he 
laid  upon  the  will  in  the  Christian  life.  While 
he  was  insistent  upon  the  need  of  the  Chris- 
tian attaining  to  the  experience  of  holiness,  it 


130       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

was  not  his  thought  that  this  experience  is 
to  Jie  understood  as  faultlessness  in  conduct 
or  blamelessness  in  character.  *^y  perfec- 
tion," he  says,  **I  mean  the  humble,  gentle, 
patient  love  of  God  and  our  neighbor,  ruHng 
our  tempers,  words,  and  actions."  It  would 
seem  that  he  purposely  avoided  giving  the 
impression  that  perfection  is  sinlessness.  His 
definition  of  sin  as  "voluntary  transgression 
of  a  known  law  of  God"  would  prohibit  this. 
Perfection  is  a  matter  of  the  purpose  or  dis- 
position of  one's  life.  It  is  being  able  to  say, 
"I  am  come  to  do  not  my  own  will  but  the 
will  of  him  that  sent  me."  It  is  a  life  inspired 
and  controlled  by  one  aim,  and  that  to  know 
and  to  do  the  will  of  God. 

It  is  not  Wesley's  thought,  however,  that 
the  perfect  man  is  simply  one  whose  motive 
is  ever  right.  Life  lived  from  the  level  of 
duty  is  not  the  Christian's  highest  privilege. 
Duty  implies  anxiety  and  fear,  but  Scripture 
represents  to  us  the  possibility  of  a  life  of 
peace.  Peace  is  attainable  only  through  the 
control  of  the  whole  nature  by  some  positive 
principle  that  fills  consciousness  and  makes 
righteousness  easy.  That  principle  is  spiritual 
love.  This  transforms  duty  into  pleasure,  and 
makes  the  most  irksome  task  radiant  with 
joy.     Think  you   that  Father  Damien  found 


IS  PERFECTION  POSSIBLE?        131 

a  life  of  service  for  the  Molokaian  lepers  a 
task?  Did  he  offer  himself  upon  the  altar  of 
sacrifice  only  because  duty  demanded  it? 
Not  so.  He  moved  under  the  impulse  of  a 
divine  constraint  that  made  each  day's  service 
a  delight,  because  it  was  what  his  soul  would 
choose. 

Ill 

There  is  a  wholeness  about  this  view  of 
perfection  which  is  its  chief  merit.  Science 
has  made  this  an  age  of  specialization.  Time 
was  when  every  physician  was  supposed  to 
be  competent  to  treat  any  part  of  the  human 
organism.  It  is  not  so  to-day.  One  gives 
his  thought  to  the  stomach,  another  to  the 
heart;  one  to  the  eye,  another  to  the  ear. 
This  is  an  age  of  specialists  in  the  science  of 
medicine.  The  naturalist,  by  reason  of  the 
extent  of  his  field,  is  unable  to  master  all  the 
forms  of  nature.  The  study  of  one  branch 
of  the  animal  kingdom  alone  is  the  task  of 
a  life-time.  This  specialization  is  necessary 
in  art,  literature,  and  industry.  Our  industrial 
life  is  so  highly  organized  that  to  each  work- 
man falls  a  single  task,  and  in  this  he  must 
be  expert.  The  field  of  literature  and  art 
has  become  so  extensive  that  any  reasonable 
production  requires  a  division  of  labor.     But 


132       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

in  the  very  nature  of  the  case  there  can  be  no 
specialization  in  morals.  Morality  is  a  dis- 
position of  the  soul  toward  the  duties  of  life; 
it  is  the  reaction  of  the  human  spirit  in  the 
field  of  conduct,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  be 
expert  in  one  sphere  of  conduct  and  ignore 
the  rest.  Whatever  else  may  be  said  of  our 
morals,  they  must  be  well  rounded;  that  is, 
they  must  apply  to  all  days  and  all  acts. 
We  are  too  inclined  to  be  Christian  special- 
ists. There  are  few  of  us  but  excel  in  some 
one  grace,  while  we  are  greatly  lacking  in 
others.  One  is  large  in  sympathy,  but  weak 
in  faith.  Another  is  strictly  honest  in  business, 
but  fretful  and  irritable  in  little  things.  Church 
members  are  often  firm  in  their  belief  in  the 
doctrines  which  the  church  inculcates,  and 
this  is  commendable;  but  too  often  they  are 
devoid  of  that  Christian  love  without  which 
such  belief  is  as  nothing.  This  is  not  the 
Christianity  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  has  no  place 
for  Christian  specialists.  He  calls  for  that 
attitude  of  soul  which  always  and  at  all  times 
disposes  one  to  follow  the  divine  will. 

**Holiness"  is  a  word  not  held  in  the  high- 
est respect  in  the  popular  mind  of  our  day. 
With  many  the  term  is  associated  with  fanat- 
icism and  sensationalism.  This  is  unfortunate, 
for,    rightly    understood,    there    is    no    more 


IS  PERFECTION  POSSIBLE?        133 

noble  word  in  our  language.  Several  reasons 
have  no  doubt  contributed  to  this  misunder- 
standing, but  there  is  one  for  which  we  our- 
selves are  largely  to  blame.  In  our  popular 
usage  the  term  has  been  employed  to  indicate 
a  negative  condition;  it  has  been  interpreted 
as  referring  not  to  the  possession  of  something 
excellent  so  much  as  to  the  absence  of  some- 
thing branded  as  bad.  But  holiness  in  the 
New  Testament  is  a  distinctively  positive  term. 
It  is  more  than  innocence.  Innocence  is  a 
clean  sheet  with  no  writing  on  it;  holiness  is 
a  clean  sheet,  but  with  a  lot  of  writing  on  it 
— writing  of  a  definite  kind,  the  record  of 
self-conquest  and  self-development.  Holiness 
is  heroism,  and  heroism  of  the  boldest  type, 
heroism  in  the  moral  life.  There  are  men 
to-day  who,  if  called  to  take  up  arms  and  go 
to  the  front  in  defense  of  their  country,  would 
do  so  gladly.  We  call  them  heroes,  yet  these 
same  men  have  had  habits  and  impulses  am- 
bushed in  their  lives  for  years,  enslaving  and 
hampering  them.  They  know  these  enemies 
are  there,  they  know  they  are  undermining 
their  life,  and  they  have  never  had  the  courage 
to  rise  up  and  drive  them  out.  It  is  easy  to 
be  a  hero  on  the  battlefield  of  the  nations; 
it  is  hard  to  be  a  hero  on  the  battlefield  of 
the  soul;  and  that  man  who  sneers  at  holiness 


134       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

as  something  cheap  and  sentimental  simply 
does  not  know  what  holiness  is.  He  has  not 
entered  into  a  warfare  with  the  enemies  in  his 
own  life.  He  has  never  undertaken  a  fight 
to  the  finish  with  selfishness  and  lust.  He  has 
never  tried  to  walk  the  path  marked  out  by 
the  Son  of  God.  For  the  distinctive  achieve- 
ment of  the  life  of  Jesus  was  this,  that  he  was 
a  man  and  lived  among  men,  and  was  perfectly 
holy.  He  did  not  seek  seclusion  as  a  better 
condition  for  living  a  holy  life.  Conditions 
never  once  were  accounted  by  him.  He  took  the 
world  as  it  was,  and  lived  his  life  and  retired 
from  the  scene  without  a  blot  on  his  banner 
or  a  single  record  of  defeat.  And  what  was 
this  perfection  of  Jesus?  First  of  all,  and 
chiefly,  it  was  a  perfection  of  will.  His  first 
recorded  utterance  is,  "Did  ye  not  know  that 
I  must  be  about  my  Father's  business.'^" 
Every  thought  and  deed  after  the  moment  of 
that  utterance  was  governed  by  the  purpose 
these  words  express.  Throughout  the  varied 
experiences  of  his  ministry  he  was  completely 
devoted  to  the  doing  of  the  will  of  God.  And, 
this  is  the  perfection  you  and  I  may  hope 
to  attain.  We  cannot  expect  to  be  blameless, 
but  we  ought  to  have  that  attitude  of  will 
which  always  seeks  to  do  the  right.  Not 
that  we  shall  ever  reach  a  finished  perfection. 


IS  PERFECTION  POSSIBLE?        135 

Any  state  of  perfection  involves  the  possi- 
bility of  advance.  Christianity,  it  is  true, 
presents  the  ideal  of  an  absolute  good,  and 
bids  men  seek  after  it;  but  at  the  same  time 
it  makes  clear  that  the  good  for  us  lies  in  our 
growth  toward  that  ideal,  a  growth  measured 
by  the  degree  of  our  devotion  to  it. 

IV 

The  assertion  of  Scripture,  then,  is  that  a 
life  of  outward  obedience  to  the  will  of  God 
is  a  means  of  inner  transformation.  Thereby 
the  springs  of  a  man's  life  are  changed.  So 
that  doing  the  perfect  will  of  God  ultimately 
results  in  inner  completion  of  one's  being. 

There  is  a  modern  theory  of  ethics  which 
teaches  that  in  the  struggle  with  environment 
man  is  making  himself;  that  day  by  day  as  he 
labors  to  subdue  his  passions  and  follow  the 
law  of  reason  he  is  constituting  himself  a  moral 
being.  The  little  child  is  not  a  moral  being, 
but  only  the  prophecy  of  one.  His  nature 
is  a  sort  of  ground-plan  upon  which  the  years 
to  come  are  to  build  the  structure  of  the  life 
to  be.  Struggle  and  effort,  success  and  fail- 
ure, the  joys  of  triumph  and  the  regrets  of 
defeat  all  have  their  place  in  this  process  of 
construction.  At  no  time  is  the  task  complete; 
there  is  always  something  more  to  be  gained. 


136        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

Goodness  is  perpetual  self-development;  and 
human  life  is  defined  in  the  paradox,  I  build  and 
yet  in  building  I  am. 

This  theory  is  in  harmony  with  the  teaching 
of  the  New  Testament.  The  Christian's  task 
is  to  obey  the  divine  will,  but  in  so  doing  the 
inner  life  is  ever  renewed.  Take  one  outstand- 
ing illustration.  Here  is  the  fisherman  Peter, 
to  whom  Jesus  one  day  said  "Follow  me." 
Peter  was  weak-willed  and  impulsive,  but 
Jesus  made  no  mention  of  these  frailties.  He 
simply  said,  "Follow  me";  and  Peter  fol- 
lowed. He  failed,  but  he  kept  his  will  set 
on  following:  he  denied,  but  he  did  not  desert; 
and  one  day  Jesus  turning  to  him  said,  "Peter, 
when  thou  hast  fully  recovered  thyself, 
strengthen  the  brethren."  In  these  words 
Jesus  looked  forward  to  the  day  when,  as  a 
reward  of  faithful  obedience  to  his  command, 
Peter  would  become  strong  enough  to  sustain 
the  wavering  faith  of  others  by  his  example. 
Peter  at  last  became  a  new  man  in  Christ, 
but  he  never  thought  of  himself  as  faultless. 
Writing  his  letters  to  those  of  the  Dispersion, 
he  speaks  words  of  strength,  but  they  are  the 
words  of  a  man  who  in  humility  and  by  the 
help  of  God  is  still  struggling  on. 

It  is  not  the  thought  that  this  gradual 
transformation   is   wholly   the   result   of   one's 


IS  PERFECTION  POSSIBLE?        137 

own  effort.  If  one  were  left  to  fight  his  way 
single-handed  upward  toward  excellence,  the 
task,  even  if  possible,  would  require  more 
than  an  ordinary  lifetime.  From  the  human 
standpoint  the  full  Christian  life  is  a  surrender 
of  the  soul  to  God;  in  its  divine  aspect  it  is 
the  life  of  God  in  the  soul.  The  will  which 
is  devoted  to  God  is  energized  and  made 
capable  of  something  greater  than  was  pre- 
viously known.  All  growth  comes  through  the 
expression  of  a  life-principle,  which  may  be 
solicited,  or  directed,  but  which  is  itself  orig- 
inal. We  sometimes  think  it  possible  to  add 
graces  to  a  life  from  without.  This  is  the 
method  of  a  false  culture  which  says,  "Take 
a  man  as  he  is  and  add  to  him."  But  that 
method  spells  failure.  God's  method  begins 
within.  "For  it  is  God  that  worketh  in  you 
both  to  will  and  to  do  of  his  good  pleasure." 
All  the  graces  of  character  are  from  God, 
though  it  please  him  to  attach  them  to  obedi- 
ence. Growth  in  character  is  increase  in 
capacity  for  spiritual  appropriation,  whereby 
the  power  of  the  Eternal  becomes  available 
to  us. 

A  traveler  from  Japan  has  said  that  in  that 
country,  arctic  in  winter,  tropical  flora  are 
to  be  found.  Scientists  explain  this  phenom- 
enon   by    saying    that    the    land    is    volcanic. 


138        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

and  beneath  the  surface  is  a  heat  with  which 
the  roots  are  in  contact.  The  in  working  of 
God  is  a  source  of  constant  renewal  in  the 
Hfe.  There  is  no  grace  or  goodness  possible 
to  us  but  finds  the  secret  of  its  growth  in  him. 
Beneath  and  beyond  all,  there  is  a  source  of 
energy  producing  for  those  who  seek  them 
those  states  of  soul  which  are  desirable.  Life 
is  triumphant  as  it  realizes  in  itself  this  power 
of  spiritual  renewal.  This  is  the  vindication 
of  the  claim  that  obedience  to  the  will  of  God 
is  the  condition  of  the  perfect  life. 

Not  long  ago  a  prominent  layman  in  the 
church  absented  himself  from  public  worship 
because  the  theme  for  discussion  was  **Chris- 
tian  Perfection."  He  regarded  it  a  waste  of 
time  to  discuss  a  mere  fiction.  No  man,  said 
he,  can  be  perfect  in  the  absolute  sense,  and 
there  is  no  other  sense  in  which  the  term 
can  be  employed.  This  man  was  right,  but 
he  was  also  wrong.  There  is  a  perfection  that 
belongs  to  the  Christian,  the  only  perfection 
possible  to  man.  That  is  a  perfect  devotion 
to  the  ideal  of  life,  expressing  itself  in  a  con- 
stant endeavor  to  apply  the  spirit  of  that 
ideal  to  every  fact  of  experience.  Such  a 
devotion  results  in  a  perpetual  growth  toward 
the  standard  which  the  ideal  presents.  Other 
objects   in   our    world    are   perfect   by   reason 


IS  PERFECTION  POSSIBLE?        1S9 

of  some  function  which  they  perform.  Man 
is  an  end  in  himself,  an  end,  however,  which 
is  impHcit.  Perfection,  therefore,  is  progress; 
and  since  God  himself  is  the  end,  and  God 
is  in  all,  we  have  the  assurance  that  growth 
will  finally  reach  its  goal  when  man  has  at- 
tained to  God.  "Not  that  I  have  already 
obtained,  or  am  already  made  perfect:  but 
I  press  on  .  .  .  toward  the  goal  unto  the  prize 
of  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus." 


CHAPTER  X 

LIFE'S  GREAT  PARADOX- 
SELF-ASSERTION  VERSUS  SELF- 
RENUNCIATION 

Our  discussion  so  far  has  dealt  largely  with 
the  individual  in  his  endeavor  after  self- 
realization.  We  have  now  to  notice  that  the 
fullest  life  for  the  individual  is  not  possible 
apart  from  the  lives  of  others. 


In  the  common  mind  self-interest  and  service 
are  usually  considered  as  rival  terms.  The 
former  suggests  a  person  following  selfishly 
his  own  private  gain;  the  latter,  the  soldier, 
missionary,  or  the  nurse,  who  renounce  life's 
comforts,  even  life  itself,  for  a  cause  the  good 
of  which  they  themselves  will  never  share. 
Here  is  a  distinct  opposition,  and  one  is  forced 
into  the  equivocal  position  of  either  being 
frowned  upon  by  society  as  selfish,  or  sub- 
mitting to  a  course  that  appears  to  be  both 
irrational  and  unjust. 

The  teaching  of  J-esus  has  not  escaped  this 

140 


LIFE'S  GREAT  PARADOX  141 

paradox.  The  very  heart  of  his  gospel  was 
its  exaltation  of  the  individual.  His  message 
to  men  was  the  message  of  their  own  im- 
portance. He  offered  to  the  slave,  the  poor, 
and  the  oppressed  salvation  from  debasing 
conditions,  and  an  inheritance  above  the 
pomp  of  kings.  Yet  hand  in  hand  with  this 
appeal  to  self-assertion  is  the  demand  for 
self-denial.  "Whosoever  would  save  his  life 
shall  lose  it;  and  whosoever  shall  lose  his 
life  .  .  .  shall  save  it."  "If  any  man  would 
come  after  me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take 
up  his  cross  daily  and  follow  me."  How  are 
we  to  harmonize  these  two  apparently  con- 
tradictory demands  .f* 

Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall,  in  his  recent  work, 
Jesus  the  Christ  in  the  Light  of  Psychology, 
explains  this  discrepancy  by  the  claim  that 
these  statements  represent  different  stages  in 
the  development  of  Jesus'  thought.  "If  Jesus 
said  all  that  is  ascribed  to  him  about  the 
Kingdom,"  says  Dr.  Hall,  "those  who  seek  to 
know  his  mature  views  concerning  it  are  in 
the  position  of  one  given  every  saying  of  a 
great  man  on  a  great  theme  from  childhood 
on  and  told  that  they  are  all  put  forth  at  the 
same  time,  stage,  or  level  of  his  development."^ 
That  would  mean  that  in  the  earlier  part  of 

^G.  Stanley  Hall,  Jesus  the  Christ  in  the  Light  of  Psychology,  ii,  p.  359. 
New  York,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.     1917. 


142       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

his  career  Jesus  thought  much  of  self-assertion 
— "What  should  a  man  give  in  exchange  for 
his  life?"  In  his  later  teaching  he  came  to 
emphasize  the  value  of  life  for  society — "Who- 
soever would  save  his  life  shall  lose  it."  Ac- 
cording to  Dr.  Hall,  the  consciousness  of  Jesus 
was  not  perfect  from  the  start,  it  developed 
toward  maturity,  and  therefore  his  later  words 
are  the  only  true  representation  of  his  mes- 
sage to  the  world. 

If  Dr.  Hall's  claim  is  correct,  it  is  an  ex- 
ceeding misfortune  that  the  sayings  of  Jesus 
were  all  transmitted  to  the  church  as  being 
of  equal  value.  This  misfortune  has  filled  the 
Christian  thought  of  the  centuries  with  con- 
fusion. But  is  it  correct  that  there  is  an 
inherent  opposition  between  these  two  groups 
of  sayings — those  admonishing  self-assertion 
and  those  requiring  self-denial.^  On  the  surface 
they  appear  discrepant;  but  if  we  look  more 
closely,  we  find  that  in  reality  they  are  in 
agreement.  Each  is  true,  but  not  in  itself 
alone.  It  is  true  only  when  taken  with  the 
other.  "What  should  a  man  give  in  exchange 
for  his  life.^"  This  statement  is  true,  there 
is  no  more  significant  insight  in  our  civil- 
ization. But,  "Whosoever  would  save  his 
life  shall  lose  it."  The  goal  of  life  is  to  make 
the  most  of  oneself:   and   how   shall   this  be 


LIFE'S  GREAT  PARADOX  143 

done?     Not  by   self-preservation  merely  but 
also  by  self-renunciation. 

II 

First,  we  must  emphasize  that  there  is  no 
particular  merit  in  giving  one's  life  away. 
There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  loose  thinking 
connected  with  our  teaching  concerning  sacri- 
fice. No  virtue  appertains  to  self-sacrifice  as 
such.  It  must  have  a  reason,  sacrifice  must 
be  for  something.  Whatever  merit  it  obtains 
is  derived  from  the  end  to  which  it  contributes. 

Furthermore,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
a  man's  first  duty  is  with  himself.  Life  will 
always  remain  an  individual  affair;  it  can 
never  become  selfless.  The  good  man  is  one 
who  respects  himself;  the  bad  man  has  lost 
this  regard.  The  strong  man  is  one  who  is 
sure  of  himself;  the  weakling  never  knows 
whether  he  is  equal  to  the  test  or  not.  We 
are  separate  beings.  Each  man  must  bear 
his  own  burden,  fight  his  own  battles,  win 
his  own  victories.  Not  only  so,  it  is  incumbent 
upon  every  man  that  he  shall  be  true  to  him- 
self. We  find  the  standard  of  our  life  within. 
No  one  else  can  tell  us  what  duty  is,  what 
right  is.  What  is  right  to  you  is  right;  what 
is  truth  to  you  is  true;  what  is  beauty  to  you 
is  beautiful.     Every  man's  world  is  great  or 


144       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

small,  dull  or  glorious,  with  the  size  or  shade 
of  his  own  soul. 

But  a  man  is  not  a  mere  individual.  He  is 
the  bearer  of  a  common  personality  and  the 
sharer  of  a  common  life.  Life  has  its  indi- 
vidual aspect;  it  has  also  its  social  aspect. 
We  are  called  upon  to  recognize  in  others  the 
same  claims  we  make  for  ourselves.  If  my 
life  is  an  end  in  itself,  I  am  bound  to  grant 
the  same  as  true  of  every  other  life.  This 
was  the  significance  of  the  commandment, 
"Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 
That  injunction  did  not  forbid  self-love;  it 
simply  required  that  the  rights  we  demand 
for  ourselves  we  shall  recognize  as  belonging 
to  others  also. 

Again,  we  have  not  stated  the  whole  per- 
sonality when  we  have  presented  the  claims 
of  the  individual  as  such.  The  person  is  more 
than  a  unit.  It  sustains  relations  with  others, 
as  father  or  mother,  brother  or  sister,  son 
or  daughter,  neighbor,  citizen,  friend.  Indeed, 
it  exists  in  these  relations.  An  isolated  per- 
sonality is  inconceivable.  The  lives  of  indi- 
viduals are  so  closely  knit  together  that  it 
is  impossible  to  consider  the  good  of  one  apart 
from  the  good  of  others.  The  good  for  every 
individual  is  a  social  good — a  good  from  which 
he  cannot  exclude  his  fellows.     All  action  is 


LIFE'S  GREAT  PARADOX  145 

prompted  by  self-interest,  but  the  quality  of 
the  action  varies  with  the  character  of  the  self. 
The  interest  may  be  narrow  or  expansive. 
It  may  seek  to  favor  the  self  at  the  cost  of 
others,  or  it  may  seek  the  good  of  the  self 
in  the  good  of  others. 

The  relation  of  the  individual  to  society, 
then,  is  a  question  of  the  size  of  the  self.  There 
are  not  two  selves  in  each  of  us,  the  one  ego- 
istic, the  other  altruistic,  duty  requiring  the 
sacrifice  of  the  one  to  the  other.  Every  actual 
self  includes  social  relations,  and  is  meas- 
ured by  the  extent  to  which  these  are  multi- 
plied and  enlarged.  The  development  of  per- 
sonality implies  an  increase  in  identification 
with  others'  interests,  and  readiness  to  forego 
strictly  personal  ends  that  these  may  be 
realized.  This  means  that  as  the  life  is  broad- 
ened and  deepened  personal  motives  become 
more  and  more  subservient  to  a  larger  interest 
and  a  larger  good.  Eucken  has  given  splendid 
statement  to  this  thought  in  an  incidental 
definition  of  love  found  on  one  of  his  pages. ^ 
"Love  is  primarily  not  a  subjective  emotion, 
but  an  expansion  and  a  deepening  of  life, 
through  life  setting  itself  in  the  other,  taking 
the  other  up  into  itself;  and  in  this  movement 


^Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal,  p.  231.     London,  Adam  and  Charles 
Black.     1912.    The  Macmillan  Company,  Agents. 


146       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

life  itself  becomes  greater,  more  comprehensive, 
and  noble."  This  is  simply  a  restatement  of 
Jesus'  words,  "Wliosoever  shall  lose  his  life 
shall  find  it." 

Selfishness  and  unselfishness,  as  applied  to  a 
person,  are  not  mutually  exclusive  terms. 
They  are  relative  terms.  They  represent 
different  degrees  of  breadth  of  personality. 
Selfishness  is  short-sightedness.  It  indicates 
an  interest  that  is  narrow  and  exclusive.  As 
Professor  Dewey  has  suggested,^  the  man  who 
keeps  his  seat  while  ladies  stand  is  simply 
narrowly  unconscious  of  factors  in  the  situa- 
tion that  should  operate  upon  him.  He  sees 
only  the  seat,  not  the  seat  and  the  lady.  This 
is  the  principle  of  all  selfish  action.  It  indicates 
a  narrow  interest,  due  to  a  narrow  or  in- 
different self.  Unselfishness,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  not  being  devoid  of  self-interest;  it 
is  the  broadening  of  that  interest  so  as  to  take 
in  the  well-being  of  others.  As  unselfishness 
increases,  regard  for  others'  welfare  assumes  a 
more  and  more  prominent  place  in  motivation. 
A  man  who  being  alone  flees  from  danger,  is 
not  selfish;  but  a  man  who  thinks  only  of  his 
own  safety  when  there  are  others  who  might 
be  aided,  deserves  our  condemnation. 


•Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  p.  381.     New  York,  Henry  Holt  &  Com- 
pany.    1913. 


LIFE'S  GREAT  PARADOX  14T 

III 

This  conception  of  the  relation  of  the  self 
and  the  other  needs  emphasis  to-day.  In 
both  religion  and  economics  confusion  here 
has  resulted  in  serious  loss.  On  the  one  hand, 
the  way  of  salvation  has  been  marked  out  as 
the  path  of  self-annihilation.  The  self-regard- 
ing interests  have  been  interpreted  by  them- 
selves as  constituting  an  entity  which  in  prin- 
ciple and  practice  is  wholly  at  war  with  the 
higher  life.  This  is  the  self  of  nature,  and 
it  must  be  destroyed  and  another  superimposed 
upon  it  if  one  is  to  live  a  saved  life.  The  result 
has  been  a  tendency  in  religion  to  asceticism. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  gains  in  the 
past  resulting  from  a  withdrawal  from  the 
world,  for  the  literature  of  devotion  asceticism 
has  lost  its  appeal  as  a  religious  discipline. 
This  is  well,  for  the  type  of  personality  fostered 
by  such  discipline  is  both  empty  and  ineffective. 

The  old  view  has  also  been,  and  is,  a  source 
of  error  in  economics.  It  has  made  for  the 
disparagement  of  the  individual,  the  assump- 
tion being  that  the  individual  is  the  old  self 
of  evil  which  must  be  destroyed.  Political 
and  economic  salvation  is  to  be  found  in 
collectivism.  Just  what  collectivism  is  is  not 
made  plain,  except  that  it  is  the  negation  of 
all  self-regarding  aims  and  interests. 


14*8        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

The  relation  of  the  individual  to  society 
must  be  one  of  community,  not  of  antagonism. 
So  far  at  least  as  our  American  ideal  is  con- 
cerned, organized  society  exists  for  the  purpose 
of  maintaining  the  rights  of  the  individual. 
That  social  organization  is  best  which  secures 
to  the  individual  the  fullest  chance  for  self- 
development.  But  self-development  implies  in- 
creasing interest  in  social  harmony  and  a 
fuller  recognition  of  the  rights  of  others. 
The  social  theory  that  ignores  the  claims  of 
the  individual  is  grossly  impractical;  while 
the  individual  who  denies  the  claims  of  society 
is  blindly  narrow.  Only  by  participating  in 
certain  social  arrangements,  such  as  family, 
friendship,  school,  organizations  for  trade  and 
for  government,  can  the  individual  realize  the 
good  of  life.  His  liberty  becomes  real  through 
the  opening  up  of  social  avenues  of  self-expres- 
sion. But  at  the  same  time  responsibility  is 
born.  He  becomes  aware  of  the  dependence 
of  his  own  welfare  upon  the  maintenance  of 
and  compliance  with  social  requirements,  and 
susceptible  to  others'  rights.  As  the  indi- 
viduality enlarges,  this  sense  of  responsibility 
grows,  until  one  becomes  more  and  more  ready 
to  sacrifice  personal  rights  in  the  effort  to 
gain  larger  liberties  for  the  less  fortunate. 

Jesus  was  neither  an  ascetic  nor  a  collectiv- 


LIFE'S  GREAT  PARADOX  149 

ist.  He  mingled  in  the  world's  affairs  and 
sought  his  salvation  in  and  through  them. 
He  set  out  with  the  individual  in  his  endeavor 
to  establish  a  redeemed  society.  He  recog- 
nized that  the  only  society  possible  is  one  of 
individuals,  and  that  such  a  society  is  a  success 
or  a  failure  according  to  the  nature  of  those 
individuals.  He  declared  that  the  greatness 
of  a  disciple  consists  in  lowly  service.  A 
disciple  must  not  think  of  himself  alone; 
rather  let  him  work  on  behalf  of  others  for 
their  welfare  in  a  self-denying  spirit.  Thus 
alone  his  own  supreme  and  proper  welfare 
as  a  member  of  the  Kingdom  can  be  secured. 

IV 

The  question  is,  then,  How  shall  we  acquire 
the  larger  self,  the  broader  interest.^  The 
answer  is  that  it  cannot  be  done  by  fixing 
attention  upon  oneself.  The  man  who  thinks 
only  of  his  own  private  interest  is  false  to 
the  larger  self.  "Whosoever  would  save  his 
life  shall  lose  it." 

The  question  here  is  one  with  the  central 
problem  of  all  morals:  How  shall  we  get  men 
to  resign  the  lower  for  the  higher  good,  the 
immediate  for  the  more  remote.'*  What  is 
the  sin  of  the  sensualist.?  It  is  that  he  seeks 
his  own  satisfaction  without  reference  to  higher 


150       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

ends.  What  is  the  sin  of  the  egoist?  It  is 
that  he  chooses  the  narrower  instead  of  the 
larger  interest.  The  principle  of  the  sin  in 
each  case  is  the  same.  What  is  lacking  is  not 
knowledge  of  the  good  so  much  as  the  ability 
to  rate  the  higher  above  the  lower  and  give 
oneself  to  it. 

Christianity  offers  to  impart  this  ability,  and 
promises  to  do  it  through  the  contagion  of  a 
great  personality.  It  is  an  ultimate  law  that 
the  soul's  affections  can  be  changed  only  by 
the  touch  of  a  greater  soul.  Men  know  what 
is  good,  and  yet  remain  in  bondage  to  that 
which  is  base,  until  they  are  won  to  the  service 
of  the  good  through  the  impress  of  another 
whose  life  is  dominated  by  the  supreme  Spirit. 
The  Kingswood  colliers  were  a  coarse  and 
brutal  lot,  given  wholly  to  sensuality,  until 
they  came  under  the  spiritual  impress  of  John 
Wesley.  Then  their  desires  were  changed,  their 
horizons  broadened,  and  a  new  and  higher 
form  of  life  was  produced.  And  so  it  always 
is.  Education,  as  the  term  is  customarily 
understood,  cannot  produce  the  larger  life. 
If  the  affections  remain  unchanged,  education 
may  result  only  in  a  cultivated  villain,  who 
employs  his  acquired  faculties  in  the  service 
of  an  enlarged  self-interest.  A  trained  in- 
tellect does  not  necessarily  imply  an  upright 


LIFE'S  GREAT  PARADOX  151 

life.  Education  in  the  larger  sense  of  the 
drawing  out  or  unfolding  of  the  possibilities  of 
personality  does  constitute  a  saving  discipline, 
but  this  is  vastly  more  than  intellectual  in- 
struction. 

It  is  the  supreme  merit  of  Christianity  that 
it  has  inspired  in  men  this  personal  abandon, 
this  interest  in  the  larger  good.  Not  only 
has  Christianity  created  in  the  multitudes  the 
desire  to  make  some  sacrifice  for  others'  sake, 
but  it  has  begotten  in  individuals  in  each 
generation  that  readiness  to  devote  their  lives 
to  human  well-being  that  has  given  us  the 
missionary,  the  martyr,  and  the  reformer. 
How  has  this  been  accomplished.'*  Why  did 
Paul  choose  poverty,  suffering,  prison,  and 
death  .f*  Why  did  Savonarola  risk  his  life  at 
the  hands  of  a  frenzied  mob.^^  Why  did  Living- 
stone die  for  the  sake  of  the  black  man?  Why 
have  the  Lord's  servants  in  all  ages  toiled  on 
joyfully  knowing  they  themselves  would  not 
see  the  fruits  of  their  labors.'^  Because  of  the 
example  of  Christianity's  Saviour,  the  exam- 
ple of  his  cross.  That  cross  brought  to  men  a 
new  sense  of  duty,  reenforced  by  a  sublime 
faith  in  God.  It  has  fired  a  few  great-souled 
men  and  women  in  each  age  with  a  holy  self- 
abandon,  and  they  by  their  word  and  example, 
as   representatives    of    the   cross,    have   been 


152        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

lifting  the  generations  out  of  self  to  higher 
things.  Christianity  as  a  process  of  heart- 
culture,  is  justifying  its  claim  to  be  a  fountain 
of  energy  for  the  creation  and  maintenance  of 
the  spiritual  self. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  multiply  examples  of 
lives  that  have  been  broadened  through  con- 
tact with  the  spirit  of  Jesus.  In  the  city  of 
Glasgow  was  a  painter  fast  gaining  prom- 
inence in  his  art.  In  the  course  of  a  series  of 
pictures  representing  the  life  of  his  city  he 
chose  as  a  model  a  poor  mother  and  child. 
The  mother  was  in  rags,  and  carried  her  babe 
along  the  wintry  street.  When  the  picture 
was  completed  he  stood  back  and  looked 
upon  it,  and  suddenly  a  strange  emotion  took 
possession  of  him.  He  saw  his  own  life  over 
against  the  struggling  multitude  and  he  knew 
that  henceforth  his  interest  must  be  identified 
with  theirs.  He  thought  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
and  that  life  became  a  challenge  to  him.  He 
resolved  to  forsake  his  art  and  become  a  city 
missionary.  After  a  few  years  spent  in  Chris- 
tian work  in  his  native  city,  again  the  circle 
of  his  interest  widened.  He  decided  to  go  as 
a  missionary  to  Africa,  and  there  among  the 
tribes  of  Uganda  he  spent  the  remainder  of 
his  life  endeavoring  to  bring  cheer,  enlighten- 
ment, and  hope  to  that  benighted  people. 


LIFE'S  GREAT  PARADOX  153 

This  briefly  is  the  story  of  Bishop  Tucker, 
a  man  who  was  led  from  a  narrow  self-interest 
to  identify  his  own  welfare  with  the  well- 
being  of  the  world.  He  is  one  of  a  long  list 
who,  beginning  with  the  apostle  Paul,  have 
filled  every  age  with  the  hope  of  better  things. 
And  whatever  else  may  be  involved,  the 
world's  hope  to-day  lies  in  the  multiplication 
of  such  lives.  Humanity  has  looked  forward 
from  the  beginning  to  the  coming  of  a  new 
age.  However  much  races  have  differed  con- 
cerning the  time  or  method  of  appearance  of 
that  age,  all  have  agreed  regarding  its  char- 
acter. It  must  be  a  time  of  peace  and  of 
good  will.  Peace  is  possible  only  when  men 
individually  and  as  a  class  learn  to  regard 
each  other's  interests  as  their  own.  There- 
fore let  him  who  hopes  for  the  millennium 
seek  to  develop  within  himself,  and  to  inspire 
within  others,  that  disposition  commended  by 
Jesus  when  he  said,  "Whosoever  would  save 
his  life  shall  lose  it;  and  whosoever  shall  lose 
his  life  for  my  sake  and  the  gospel's  shall 
save  it." 


CHAPTER  XI 
LIFE  AND  DEATH 

There  are  principles  in  our  world  that  in 
their  operation  manifest  themselves  in  differ- 
ent ways,  and  these  manifestations  sometimes 
take  the  form  of  apparent  opposites.  Failing 
to  detect  the  underlying  unity  in  these  man- 
ifestations, we  often  look  upon  them  as  sep- 
arate and  unrelated,  or  even  as  antagonistic, 
and  lift  to  the  dignity  of  distinct  principles 
what  are  but  varying  expressions  of  one  funda- 
mental law.  Much  of  the  confusion  and 
many  of  the  seemingly  insoluble  problems  of 
life  arise  from  this  failure  to  trace  the  roots 
of  so-called  opposing  forces  back  to  a  com- 
mon source,  and  seek  their  explanation  by 
relating  them  to  one  another. 

Nowhere  is  this  statement  better  exempli- 
fied than  in  our  thought  of  life  and  death. 
It  is  customary  to  think  of  these  terms  as 
representing  an  eternal  opposition — one,  the 
effort  to  build  up,  the  other,  the  endeavor 
to  tear  down;  one,  the  law  of  self-preservation, 
the  other,  the  method  of  destruction.  We 
would  scarcely  think  of  attempting  to  har- 
154 


LIFE  AND  DEATH  165 

monize  them,  much  less  of  unifying  them. 
And  yet  perhaps  just  this  is  the  key  to  the 
mystery  of  life  and  death.  What  we  call  life 
and  death  are  progressive  stages,  the  one 
unfolding  into  the  other,  the  crest  and  trough 
of  the  wave  by  which  eternal  life  in  time 
presses  forward  to  its  fulfillment. 


It  requires  little  evidence  to  show  that 
man  has  always  looked  upon  death  with  an 
attitude  of  dread. 

"Whatever  crazy  sorrow  saith, 
No  life  that  breathes  with  human  breath. 
Has  ever  truly  longed  for  death." 

From  the  beginning  death  has  cast  its  shadow 
over  the  face  of  human  life.  Life  is  good, 
and  it  has  in  it  the  promise  of  good  to  come; 
but  death  destroys  that  promise.  In  its 
presence  all  the  values  that  make  life  desirable 
wither  away.  Love  and  hope  and  joy  are 
gone;  the  reason  and  righteousness  of  things 
is  destroyed;  the  sanctions  of  conduct  are 
removed;  the  human  heart  stands  bowed  be- 
neath a  weight  of  longing  and  loneliness. 
For  if  life  stops  at  the  grave,  its  worth,  for  the 
individual  at  least,  is  reduced  to  a  minimum. 

This  instinctive  dread  of  death  has  been 
reenforced  in  our  day  by  the  attitude  of  science. 


156        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

The  growth  of  materialism  has  brought  science 
under  the  sway  of  sense,  and  in  the  light  of 
the  senses  death  seems  supreme.  Psychology 
scoffs  at  the  possibility  of  the  soul  continuing 
its  existence  after  the  dissolution  of  the  body. 
For  what  is  the  soul.^  It  is  a  function  of  the 
physical  organism.  Does  not  consciousness 
depend  for  its  existence  upon  the  brain  .^^  Is 
not  every  act  of  a  conscious  being  the  result 
of  cerebral  action.^  Is  not  injury  to  the  brain 
followed,  not  only  by  partial  or  complete 
loss  of  consciousness,  according  to  its  severity, 
but  also  with  disorder  in  the  moral  life.^  This 
being  the  case,  how  can  one  reasonably  be- 
lieve that  consciousness  persists,  or  that  the 
soul  survives  after  the  moment  of  death  ?^ 

II 

While  man  has  always  had  a  dread  of  death, 
he  has  never  been  satisfied  to  believe  that  it 
is  the  end.  Six  thousand  years  ago,  the  Egyp- 
tians recorded  their  belief  in  a  life  after  death; 
and  from  that  day  to  the  present,  that  asser- 
tion has  never  been  silenced.  For,  if  the 
senses  declare  that  death  is  extinction,  other 
voices  protest  against  that  declaration.  In- 
stinct and  affection  cry  out  against  it.     Our 

'  The  Materialist's  argument  has  been  summarized  by  Haeckel  in  The 
Riddle  of  the  Universe,  chap.  xi. 


LIFE  AND  DEATH  157 

spiritual  possibilities  declare  against  it.  In 
the  world  everywhere  are  dim  analogies  that 
suggest  transformation  rather  than  extinction. 
Night  passes  into  day,  winter  into  summer, 
youth  into  manhood.  Francis  Thompson,  with 
his  marvelous  gift  for  similitude,  sets  forth 
this  fact  in  his  "Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun": 

"It  is  the  falling  acorn  buds  the  tree. 
The  falling  rain  that  bears  the  greenery. 
The  fem-plants  molder  when  the  ferns  arise. 
For  there  is  nothing  lives  but  something  dies. 
And  there  is  nothing  dies  but  something  lives. 

Till  skies  be  fugitives. 
Till  time,  the  hidden  root  of  change,  updries. 
Are  birth  and  death  inseparable  on  earth; 
For  they  are  twain  yet  one,  and  Death  is  Birth."^ 

The  commonest  things  are  born  again  through 
death.  Shall  man  alone,  who  transcends  them 
all,  be  but  for  a  day?  He  will  not  believe  it. 
It  was  not  the  intention  to  grant  the  claim 
of  materialistic  psychology,  that  its  evidence 
proves  that  death  is  the  end.  No  one  will 
question  the  assertion  that  consciousness  and 
the  brain  are  in  intimate  relation.  This  is  a 
matter  of  common  observation.  But  it  has 
not  been  shown  that  the  former  depends  upon 
the  latter.  Indeed,  there  is  strong  evidence 
that  the  reverse  is  the  case.    No  less  a  thinker 


»The  Works  of  Francis  Thompson,  Poems,  vol.  i.    New  York,  Charles 
Scribner'a  Sons. 


158        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

than  Weismann  has  maintained  that  the  body 
is  dependent  upon  the  soul.  The  hfe-germ, 
in  the  process  of  its  development,  wins  the 
power  of  clothing  itself  with  a  material  body, 
and  of  laying  it  aside  again.  Death,  then, 
is  not  the  master  of  life;  it  is  the  servant. 
Life  chooses  death  as  a  means  of  better  ful- 
filling its  function.  "I  consider  death,"  says 
Weismann,  "as  an  adaptation,  and  believe  it 
has  arisen  by  the  operation  of  natural  selec- 
tion." Death  has  not  been  from  the  begin- 
ning. As  the  structure  of  the  organism  be- 
comes complex,  life,  for  the  purpose  of  utility, 
sets  a  limit  both  upon  its  size  and  its  duration. 
Life  is  continuous  and  unending;  the  forms 
in  which  it  is  manifest  change  and  pass  away; 
but  it  does  not  change,  nor  does  it  cease  to  be.^ 
This  argument,  of  course,  does  not  justify 
belief  in  personal  immortality.  It  performs, 
however,  an  important  service;  (1)  in  silencing 
what  has  seemed  to  some  an  unassailable 
objection,  (2)  in  suggesting  a  principle  that 
may  be  carried  over  into  the  philosophy  of 
personality.  This  principle  is  that  only  through 
death  can  life  realize  itself.  There  is  a  sense, 
however,  in  which  the  evolutionist  has  offered 


iSee  Weismann'a  two  lectures,  "The  Duration  of  Life,"  and  "Life  and 
Death."  Dr.  W.  H.  Thomson  has  presented  this  argument  from  another 
standpoint  in  Brain  and  Personality,  chap.  viii.  Also  Flaramarion,  Death 
and  Its  Mystery.     New  York,  The  Century  Company,  1921,  chap.  ii. 


LIFE  AND  DEATH  159 

direct  support  to  belief  in  the  survival  of  the 
person.  For  millions  of  years,  so  he  declares, 
life  has  been  struggling  upward  through  multi- 
tudinous forms,  and  for  what?  To  reach  at 
last  its  culmination  in  a  person.  In  man  life 
has  achieved  a  form  that  gives  meaning  to 
the  whole.  In  man  a  goal  is  reached  that 
justifies  millenniums  of  pain  and  travail.  But 
now,  having  achieved  this  goal,  is  man,  the 
product  of  the  ages,  to  be  but  for  a  day?  It 
cannot  be. 

Ill 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  case  proof  is  impossible  with 
regard  to  the  possibilities  of  life.  Life  is  not 
a  theory,  nor  is  it  reducible  to  theory.  It  is 
a  force;  it  is  not  a  matter  of  knowledge  but 
of  belief. 

In  The  Riddle  of  the  Universe  Haeckel  scoffs 
at  Kant's  dictum  that  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  is  not  an  object  of  pure  reason,  but  a 
postulate  of  practical  reason.  "We  must  set 
practical  reason  entirely  aside,"  he  says,  "to- 
gether with  all  the  exigencies  of  emotion  and 
moral  education,  etc.,  when  we  enter  upon 
an  honest  and  impartial  pursuit  of  truth."^ 
Exactly,  and  having  done  so,  one  conclusion 

1  Ernst  Haeckel,  The  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  p.  202.  New  York,  Harper 
&  Brothers.     1900. 


160        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

necessarily  follows — a  denial  of  everything 
concerning  life  that  is  not  the  product  of 
rational  inquiry. 

But  is  this  method  justifiable?  Who  can 
tell  what  electricity  is?  or  who  will  attempt 
to  demonstrate  the  possibilities  of  electricity? 
There  are  certain  fundamental  truths  that 
have  nothing  to  do  with  knowledge;  they  have 
to  do  with  conduct.  This  is  so  of  all  the 
essential  facts  of  life.  Knowledge  may,  as 
Bergson  says,  petrify  the  stream  of  life,  cut 
a  cross-section  in  it,  and  analyze  it.  But  that 
which  it  represents  is  no  longer  life.  Life  is 
force  in  application.  It  is  "a  continually  grow- 
ing action."  It  is  a  constant  effort  toward 
the  creation  of  new  forms.  It  is  the  act  by 
which  the  form  is  shaped.  One  may  analyze 
what  it  has  been,  and  yet  be  unable  to  prophecy 
what  it  will  be.  So  far  as  that  prophecy  is 
possible,  it  must  be  based  upon  assumptions 
necessary  if  we  are  to  live  at  all.  Immortality 
is  not  an  object  that  may  be  observed,  nor 
a  truth  demonstrable  by  logical  reasoning. 
It  is  something  that  can  be  known  only  as  it 
is  experienced,  and  must  otherwise  be  received 
on  faith.  Life  at  best  is  a  great  act  of  faith. 
The  aims  which  give  it  value  are  aims  that 
cannot  be  attained  in  the  world  of  sense. 
To  accept  them  is  to  believe  in  more  time,  to 


LIFE  AND  DEATH  161 

deny  them  is  to  negate  life  itself.  To  live  at 
all  one  must  find  the  strength  to  affirm  the 
eternity  of  the  human  spirit. 

IV 

The  idea  that  the  true  meaning  of  life  is 
realized  only  through  death  is  not  new.  It 
has  haunted  the  mind  of  man  from  the  earliest 
time.  Plato  taught  that  only  through  death 
can  life  come  to  its  own.  Socrates  welcomed 
the  hemlock  because  it  set  his  spirit  free  from 
the  prison  of  mortality.  But  Plato's  thought, 
so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  nature  of  immortal 
life,  is  wholly  negative,  and  death  has  no 
other  relation  to  life  here  than  that  of  pro- 
viding an  escape  from  it.  Therefore  Plato's 
teaching  falls  short  as  a  philosophy  of  life  and 
death. 

It  is  only  when  we  approach  the  gospel  of 
Jesus,  that  we  find  this  idea  given  in  positive 
form — that  the  relation  of  life  and  death  be- 
comes vital.  In  brief,  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
is  that  man  is  able  to  rise,  here  and  now, 
above  the  conditions  of  time,  into  the  divine 
life.  This  he  does  by  renouncing  the  lower 
and  more  material  interests  and  seeking  the 
higher  and  more  spiritual.  This  renunciation 
prompts  the  birth  of  new  powers  and  possi- 
bilities that  are  enduring.     Thus  life  in  the 


162        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

flesh  becomes  a  continuous  process  of  death, 
whereby  in  each  conquest  over  the  lower  self 
the  higher  life  is  realized.  The  final  dissolu- 
tion of  the  body,  therefore,  is  the  culmination 
of  this  process,  or  the  death  of  death.  Thereby 
the  life  of  the  spirit  wins  its  full  freedom. 
This  higher  spiritual  life  abides,  for  it  shares 
the  nature  of  the  Eternal. 

1.  There  was  no  trust  more  confident  in 
Jesus  than  the  belief  that  death  for  him  was 
not  to  be  the  destruction  of  his  person.  This 
trust  did  not  arise  because  of  a  conscious- 
ness that  his  relation  to  God  was  unique. 
It  belonged  to  the  view  of  life  he  offered  to 
all  men.  The  kingdom  which  he  proclaimed 
had  as  its  essential  element  the  idea  of  eter- 
nal life.  Every  disciple  partakes  of  this 
benefit  upon  the  earth,  and  continues  a  sharer 
in  it  in  spite  of  earthly  death.  The  ascent  of 
Jesus  to  the  heavenly  life  through  death  was 
to  be  shared  by  each  of  his  followers.  They 
are  to  pass  from  the  earthly  existence  into 
participation  with  him  in  the  life  of  the  Father's 
house. 

2.  Furthermore,  the  last  discourses  of  Jesus 
give  prominence  to  the  thought  that  after 
his  death  he  would  yet  remain  in  relation 
with  his  disciples.  Death,  he  assures  them, 
is  only  an  outward  separation;  in  reality  he 


LIFE  AND  DEATH  163 

would  be  in  helpful  union  with  them.  Not 
only  is  the  idea  of  his  continued  personal 
existence  emphasized,  but  of  his  living  partici- 
pation in  their  lives.  Through  death  his  per- 
sonal influence  was  to  be  multiplied.  He 
would  be  with  them  in  a  more  real  sense  than 
he  had  been  before. 

These  are  days  when  the  broken  ties  re- 
sulting from  the  war  have  turned  the  thought 
of  large  numbers  toward  the  spirit  world. 
They  are  inquiring  anxiously  as  to  the  rela- 
tion which  their  lost  ones  sustain  to  them. 
While  one  must  guard,  and  especially  in  time 
of  grief,  against  being  led  astray  by  super- 
stition and  fraud,  nevertheless  we  must  not 
overlook  the  most  patent  teaching  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus,  that  those  who  leave  us  are 
still  in  helpful  relation  with  us.  It  may  be 
outside  the  range  of  possibility  for  us  to  com- 
municate with  them,  or  they  with  us.  Jesus' 
view  of  life,  however,  presupposes  as  un- 
questionable this  truth  which  has  ministered 
so  much  comfort  to  sorrowing  hearts. 

3.  Jesus  refrained  from  speaking  in  detail 
regarding  the  nature  of  life  after  death.  Once, 
however,  he  was  challenged  by  the  Sadducees 
to  defend  his  teaching  in  this  regard.  The 
Sadducees  seem  to  have  been  unable  to  con- 
ceive  of   life   in   other   than   sensuous   terms. 


164        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

Jesus,  therefore,  repudiates  the  sensuous  char- 
acter of  eternal  Hfe,  and  asserts  that  it  must 
be  conceived  under  spiritual  forms.  These 
forms  he  defines  merely  in  one  word,  "union 
with  God."  The  indissoluble  relationship  which 
men  sustain  with  God  as  their  Father  is  the 
source  of  eternal  vitality.  This  has  in  it 
the  germ  of  an  endless  growth,  whose  inner 
principle  is  to  seek  through  death  the  emanci- 
pation of  spiritual  being. 

4.  This  everlasting  life  is  the  true  life  of 
man.  It  is  not  something  grafted  on  to  man's 
natural  being.  It  is  the  issue  God  purposed 
for  every  child  of  his.  It  contributes  value 
to  man's  earthly  existence.  The  life  of  the 
poor,  the  despised,  the  persecuted,  is  worth- 
ful  in  its  light.  Even  aflfliction  becomes  trivial, 
or  serviceable,  since  the  true  worth  of  life 
lies  not  in  the  permanence  of  the  physical, 
but  in  spiritual  being.  Man  belongs  to  eter- 
nity by  birthright.  To  know  himself,  and  real- 
ize 'his  possibilities,  is  eternal  life. 


This  thought  of  Jesus  became  the  dynamic 
of  the  early  church.  At  first,  after  his  death, 
the  disciples  were  overwhelmed  with  sorrow 
at  the  idea  that  he  was  gone  from  them  for- 
ever.    But   in   a   little   while   there  came   to 


LIFE  AND  DEATH  165 

them  the  belief  that  he  was  still  alive,  their 
confidence  returned,  and  with  it  a  clearer 
understanding  of  what  he  had  said  to  them 
before  his  death.  This  belief  brought  not 
only  a  rebirth  of  courage  but  the  triumphant 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  his  Messianic  claims. 
Now  inwardly  grounded,  they  set  out  to  preach 
Jesus  in  the  face  of  a  world's  skepticism. 

No  conception  ever  inspired  in  the  mind  of 
man  has  been  the  source  of  greater  comfort 
than  this.  Thereby  fear  has  been  destroyed, 
and  Hfe  and  hope  and  consolation  are  born. 
Many  a  heart  has  turned  away  from  the  tomb 
to  resume  its  tasks  with  an  abiding  peace 
that  otherwise  could  not  have  been.  This 
teaching  of  Jesus  has  given  humanity  the  secret 
of  strength.  It  has  armed  the  soul  against 
weakness,  failure,  and  discouragement.  Live 
in  the  spirit  and  you  share  the  divine  omnip- 
otence. The  body  is  no  longer  a  clog,  a  prison, 
or  an  enemy;  it  is  an  implement  of  the  spirit. 
It  is  a  necessary  condition  in  the  process 
toward  the  soul's  completed  being.  Death 
becomes  the  gateway  to  a  fuller  life.  "Except 
a  grain  of  wheat  fall  into  the  earth  and  die, 
it  abideth  by  itself  alone;  but  if  it  die,  it  bear- 
eth  much  fruit."  As  the  grain  of  wheat  through 
the  law  of  decay  releases  the  life-principle 
and  rises  up  in  multiplied  form,  so  the  life 


166        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

of  the  soul  is  conceived  as  finding  through 
death  its  dehverance  and  fruition.  Here  is 
true  consolation.  For  this  vision  faithful 
souls  have  been  able  gladly  to  work  and  wait, 
confident  that  they  would  see  again  familiar 
faces  and  hear  the  old  sweet  words  of  love. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  RISEN  LORD 

The  resurrection  of  Jesus  is  the  fundamental 
fact  of  the  Christian  rehgion.  Christianity 
did  not  begin  with  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  his 
miracles,  nor  his  blameless  life.  When  Jesus 
died  upon  the  cross,  and  his  body  was  laid 
away  in  Joseph's  tomb,  his  followers  went 
back  to  their  homes  disheartened.  His  dis- 
ciples put  away  their  hopes  and  gathered  in 
that  upper  room  hallowed  by  their  last  meet- 
ing with  him,  and  talked  of  the  light  that  had 
shined  only  to  be  snuffed  out  forever.  "We 
had  hoped  that  it  was  he  that  should  redeem 
Israel";  but  now  that  hope  was  gone. 

No  more  bitter  day  can  come  to  a  man  than 
the  next  morning  after  death  has  entered  his 
home.  The  hope  that  sustained  through  the 
days  of  the  fight  is  gone;  the  battle  is  lost. 
Life  still  goes  on,  but  a  cloud  hangs  over  it 
that  shuts  out  the  light  of  the  sun.  Why  has 
the  morning  come  again  .^  Why  does  life  go  on 
when  its  motive  is  lost.^^  Not  otherwise  was 
it  with  the  disciples  that  morning  after  the 
crucifixion.  It  is  significant  that  the  evan- 
167 


168       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

gelists  leave  no  record  of  that  day.  Why 
should  they?  There  was  nothing  to  record. 
The  Master  is  gone,  and  his  disciples  return, 
each  to  his  place,  hopeless  and  bereft. 

But  suddenly  all  this  is  changed.  One 
fact  restored  the  disciples'  faith,  and  sent 
them  out  to  win  the  world.  Into  their  soli- 
tude a  messenger  came  who  said,  "The  tomb  is 
empty.  He  is  not  there."  They  hurry  forth 
to  see,  and  "entering  into  the  tomb,  they  saw 
a  young  man  sitting  on  the  right  side  arrayed 
in  a  white  robe;  and  they  were  amazed.  And 
he  saith  unto  them.  Be  not  amazed:  ye  seek 
Jesus,  the  Nazarene,  which  hath  been  crucified: 
he  is  risen;  he  is  not  here.  .  .  .  He  goeth  forth 
before  you  into  Galilee." 

This  message  became  the  impulse  of  a  new 
life.  Sorrow  vanished,  courage  returned.  They 
set  out  led  by  the  Spirit  of  the  living  Lord  to 
proclaim  his  kingdom.  Christianity,  as  a 
religion  of  spiritual  power  and  renewal,  was 
born  on  that  day.  The  resurrection  of  Jesus 
made  Christianity. 

But  strangely  enough,  no  fact  of  Jesus'  life 
has  been  more  fiercely  assailed  than  his  resurrec- 
tion. Especially  is  this  the  case  in  our  own  day. 
Ours  is  an  age  of  criticism,  when  everything 
must  present  itself  before  the  bar  of  investi- 
gation.   Nothing  can  escape.    Truth  must  not 


THE  RISEN  LORD  169 

base  its  claim  upon  long  recognition,  nor  divine 
authority.  It  can  stand  only  on  the  ground 
of  evidence.  No  doctrine  has  suffered  more 
from  this  attitude  than  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus.  Not  because  the  evidence  is  inadequate, 
but  because  of  a  reaction  against  miracle  that 
has  prejudiced  the  case  against  the  resurrec- 
tion. The  attacks  that  have  been  made 
have  ignored  the  evidence  largely,  while  they 
base  their  rejection  upon  opposition  to  the 
supernatural. 

It  cannot  be  too  often  emphasized,  that  to 
reject  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  on  the  ground 
of  the  impossibility  of  miracle  is  to  create 
another  miracle  as  impossible  as  that  which 
we  hoped  to  avoid.  For  if  Jesus  did  not  ap- 
pear after  his  death,  how  are  we  to  account 
for  that  mental  state  which  gave  birth  to 
Christianity,  and  created  the  Christian  Church 
and  the  Christian  Sabbath.'^  How  did  it  occur 
that  a  group  of  men  whose  leader  had  been 
put  to  death  as  a  criminal,  and  who  were 
staggering  under  the  shock  of  this  disaster, 
came  suddenly  to  regard  him  as  the  Master 
of  life  and  death  .^  A  tree  is  the  fruit  of  its 
environment;  not  otherwise  is  it  with  a  mental 
state.  Yet  here  is  a  group  of  cowards,  upon 
whose  leader  the  curse  of  God  has  come,  and 
who  have  no  hope  but  that  all  is  ended,  but 


170        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

who  in  the  short  space  of  six  weeks  rise  up  to 
declare  that  he  who  was  slain  is  alive,  that 
the  curse  has  been  turned  into  blessing,  and 
that  the  seal  of  heaven  is  upon  his  life  and 
work.  These  two  states  of  mind  are  in  ab- 
solute quarrel  with  each  other.  They  are 
understood  only  on  the  ground  that  during 
those  six  weeks  the  revelation  of  a  new  force 
entered  these  men's  lives,  and  that  force  was 
none  other  than  belief  in  the  miracle  of  the 
Risen  Lord. 

Ordinarily,  we  reverse  the  legitimate  order  of 
procedure  in  our  treatment  of  the  question 
of  the  resurrection.  We  insist  upon  beginning 
with  the  resurrection  as  a  cause,  whereas  the 
natural  order  of  procedure  is  to  begin  with  a 
group  of  facts  and  work  backward  to  a  sufficient 
source.  What  occupies  the  man  of  science 
first  are  the  phenomena  of  nature.  The  study 
of  electricity  did  not  begin  with  the  establish- 
ment of  a  law,  and  then  its  application  to  the 
facts.  It  began  with  the  lightning  and  sim- 
ilar phenomena;  it  adopted  certain  hypotheses 
to  account  for  these  phenomena,  and  finally 
settled  upon  the  one  that  comprised  the  great- 
est number  of  facts. 

The  character  of  the  evidence  for  the  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  is  unimpeachable.  No  other 
fact  of  history  has  been  better  attested.     It 


THE  RISEN  LORD  171 

is  not  simply  angels  proclaiming  to  women 
that  Jesus  is  risen,  nor  the  finding  of  the  tomb 
empty,  that  is  advanced  as  a  reason  for  accept- 
ing this  fact.  It  is  based  upon  the  same  kind 
of  evidence  as  that  upon  which  any  human 
knowledge  depends.  All  the  New  Testament 
records  testify  that  Jesus  appeared  to  his 
disciples,  and  to  others,  after  his  death.  These 
people  could  not  be  mistaken.  They  knew  him, 
and  identified  him  by  indisputable  marks. 
They  were  too  many,  and  too  diverse  in  tem- 
per, to  enable  us  to  attribute  their  belief  to 
hysterical  enthusiasm.  They  not  only  believed 
themselves,  but  they  proclaimed  the  fact  in 
the  place  where  Jesus  died,  and  to  the  people 
who  had  seen  him  put  to  death,  and  in  one 
day  three  thousand  accepted  their  testimony. 

But  in  case  this  evidence  should,  for  some 
reason,  be  rejected,  then  we  must  insist  upon 
the  employment  of  the  scientific  method  in 
our  consideration  of  the  case  in  hand.  Here 
we  are,  surrounded  by  a  group  of  facts — 
related  results,  which  require  an  explanation. 
The  Christian  Sabbath  is  an  effect  for  which 
we  must  find  an  adequate  cause.  For  twelve 
hundred  years  and  more  Saturday  was  ob- 
served as  the  Sabbath.  Why  the  change  to 
Sunday?  Here  is  the  Christian  Church,  with 
its  sanctuaries,  schools,  and  homes  of  mercy. 


172        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

scattered  over  the  world.  Whence  did  it  come? 
Here  are  multitudes  of  transformed  lives — men 
and  women,  who  through  faith  in  a  living 
Christ  have  been  lifted  out  of  selfishness, 
worldliness,  and  low  ideals,  up  to  a  higher 
and  purer  life.  These  phenomena  require  an 
adequate  explanation.  The  resurrection  of 
Jesus  provides  one  that  comprehends  all  the 
facts.  No  one  has  been  able  to  suggest  an- 
other. Faith  in  the  risen  Lord  does  not  rest 
upon  the  resurrection  as  an  historical  fact. 
It  rests  upon  the  existence  of  a  world  of  love 
and  grace  in  the  midst  of  which  we  live  and 
for  which  we  must  provide  an  adequate  source. 
There  is,  then,  a  greater  evidence  which 
presents  the  spiritual  fact  which  the  resurrec- 
tion is  intended  to  convey.  That  evidence 
is  stated  briefly  in  the  words,  "He  is  risen; 
he  is  not  here.  .  .  .  He  goeth  forth  before 
you  into  Galilee"  {Eng,  Rev.).  The  manner 
of  the  resurrection  is  secondary  What  we 
need  to  know  is  that  the  Lord  is  with  us, 
leading  the  forces  of  civilization,  and  that 
he  will  be  with  us  to  the  end.  Of  this 
fact  the  resurrection  is  the  assurance; 
of  the  resurrection  this  fact  is  the  evidence. 
The  resurrection  of  Jesus  is  the  point  of  transi- 
tion, where  he  who  was  a  single  figure  in  his- 
tory becomes  the  Lord  of  the  ages. 


THE  RISEN  LORD  173 

1.  For  two  thousand  years  He  who  was 
dead  has  been  leading  the  forces  of  civilization. 
When  they  have  halted,  his  word  of  command 
has  been  heard;  when  they  have  wavered,  his 
hand  has  led  them  back. 

This  statement  is  writ  so  large  that  it  scarcely 
requires  evidence  to  support  it.  I  take  but 
one  instance.  That  is  our  conception  of  time. 
Of  old  there  was  no  universal  time-measure. 
Early  peoples  dated  events  by  the  foundation 
of  their  city  or  the  reign  of  their  king.  But 
Jesus  stamped  his  name  upon  the  calendar  of 
the  civilized  world.  He  began  a  new  era,  alive 
with  meanings  drawing  their  inspiration  from 
him.  Here  was  furnished  a  point  of  time 
about  which  might  be  assembled  the  facts 
of  history.  From  henceforth  time  was  divided 
into  two  divisions — before  Christ  and  after 
Christ.  There  was  one  event  that  stood  in 
such  vital  relation  to  all  history  that  all  be- 
fore it  was  preparation  and  all  after  it  result. 
And  to-day  business  and  politics,  legislation 
and  literature  are  all  adjusted  to  the  chro- 
nology of  Jesus. 

How  does  this  come  about?  How  is  it  that 
a  native  of  a  subject  province,  a  Man  who 
during  his  lifetime  exerted  a  narrow  influence, 
who  was  cast  out  by  his  own  people  and  died 
a    criminal's    death,    has    written    his    name 


174        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

across  the  face  of  human  history?  He  was  a 
great  teacher,  but  the  world  had  had  great 
teachers.  He  died  as  a  martyr,  but  in  this 
he  was  not  alone.  The  answer  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  He  who  died  is  still  in  the 
midst  of  his  people,  directing  the  forces  of 
life  into  new  channels.  He  is  risen  from  the 
dead,  and  goes  before  you.  Whatever  we 
may  think  of  the  event  in  Joseph's  tomb, 
Jesus  has  been  living  in  the  life  of  the  cen- 
turies, a  spiritual  fact  working  in  the  midst 
of  men  from  out  the  unseen  world.  Despite 
continued  opposition,  his  spirit  has  taken 
hold  oi  the  life  of  the  race;  it  has  awakened, 
inspired,  and  instructed  that  life,  and  lifted 
it  up  toward  better  things. 

"But,"  you  say,  "this  does  not  argue  that 
Jesus  rose  from  the  dead.  Other  men,  about 
whom  no  such  claim  has  been  made,  have 
left  an  abiding  influence  behind.  Plato  lives 
and  Caesar  lives."  You  miss  the  point.  The 
civilization  to  which  we  refer  has  not  drawn 
its  life  from  the  personal  influence  of  Jesus 
as  transmitted  through  his  words,  but  from 
the  conviction  that  he  is  alive  and  in  the 
midst  of  his  people.  This  was  the  dynamic 
that  impelled  the  early  messengers  of  the 
cross,  that  made  them  equal  to  any  task. 
This  is  still  the  motive  power  of  all  Christian 


THE  RISEN  LORD  175 

endeavor.  "Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even 
unto  the  end  of  the  world."  Plato  could  create 
a  school;  Jesus  created  a  civilization.  Plato's 
influence  was  a  memory;  Jesus'  influence  has 
always  been  a  presence.  The  belief  in  a 
living  Christ  has  been  the  sustaining  power 
of  the  Christian  believer.  It  has  inspired  in 
the  missionary  that  spirit  of  personal  abandon 
necessary  to  the  spread  of  the  gospel  in  the 
land  of  danger.  It  has  begotten  a  confidence 
that  has  lived  and  labored  in  times  of  failure 
and  defeat.  The  Christian  has  not  only  found 
instruction  in  Jesus'  words,  and  direction  in 
his  example,  but  he  has  been  sustained,  day 
by  day,  amid  the  toils  and  dangers,  the  tempta- 
tions and  losses  of  life,  by  the  sense  of  an 
abiding  Presence. 

2.  He  goes  before  you  to-day.  You  may 
not  call  yourself  a  Christian  man,  you  may 
not  belong  to  the  Christian  Church;  but  tell 
me,  where  do  you  get  your  ideals  of  right, 
the  ambition  you  have  to  do  good  and  to 
make  humanity  better.? 

What  is  the  intelligent  motive  of  effort  in 
behalf  of  the  common  good  and  the  increase 
of  happiness  to-day  .^^  What  incentive  lies 
back  of  our  world  of  philanthropy?  The 
desire  to  make  the  conditions  of  life  more 
favorable.      But    is    this    desire   suflScient    to 


176        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

create  a  civilization  that  has  as  its  aim  to 
banish  disease  and  lengthen  life,  to  lessen 
trouble  and  lighten  toil,  unless  it  have  back 
of  it  a  supreme  sense  of  the  value  of  human 
life?  Our  civilization,  comprising  its  manifold 
agencies  for  enhancing  the  meaning  of  man's 
existence,  was  born  of  an  awakened  sense  of 
the  value  of  the  human  personality.  And 
whence  came  this  sense  of  value?  Human 
life,  though  endowed  with  its  loves  and  hopes 
and  aims,  is  an  empty  thing  if  these  are  shut 
within  the  limits  of  the  world  of  flesh. 

Any  object  acquires  its  value  from  its 
destiny.  Things  of  little  worth  become  worth- 
ful  when  they  are  made  subservient  to  a 
worthy  end.  A  block  of  refuse  marble,  out- 
side the  gates  of  Rome,  becomes  a  treasure 
of  art,  when  chosen  by  Michael  Angelo  as  the 
instrument  of  his  genius.  Even  so  the  human 
personality,  valueless  as  a  thing  of  time,  gains 
merit  when  its  destiny  is  revealed.  Man,  as 
a  child  of  eternitj^  rises  above  the  ills  and 
hurts  of  time.  His  life  wins  an  end  within 
itself,  and  henceforth  the  aim  of  human  en- 
deavor is  to  employ  the  things  of  time  so 
far  as  they  are  helpful,  to  eliminate  them  so 
far  as  they  are  a  hindrance,  to  the  attainment 
of  that  end. 

The   resurrection   of   Jesus   brought   to   the 


THE  RISEN  LORD  177 

world  a  revelation  of  the  destiny  of  human 
life.  In  the  presence  of  the  risen  Lord  belief 
in  the  eternity  of  the  soul  was  born,  and  with 
that  belief  a  civilization  that  seeks,  through 
education,  philanthropy,  and  the  mastery  of 
nature,  the  fulfillment  of  that  destiny.  And 
every  man  to-day  who  believes  in  education, 
science,  and  charity,  and  works  for  the  better- 
ment of  human  conditions,  lives  under  the 
inspiration  of  a  conception  of  life  that  was 
born  of  the  broken  tomb. 

It  is  no  mere  accident  that  Christianity  is 
the  only  type  of  civilization  that  has  made 
for  true  enlightenment  and  for  progress.  Every 
other  civilization  has  lacked  the  incentive  to 
progress,  because  it  has  failed  of  its  conception 
of  the  destiny  of  man.  Christianity  alone 
possesses  the  energy  for  advancement,  for  it 
alone  reveals  what  man  is  to  be  and  imparts 
the  power  to  realize  that  end.  The  religion 
of  Jesus,  unlike  other  religions,  calls  a  man, 
not  to  the  performance  of  acts  and  ceremonies, 
but  simply  to  the  task  of  self-realization.  Its 
very  motive  is  development.  But  that  motive 
would  be  powerless,  were  it  not  for  two  facts: 
that  in  the  person  of  Jesus  is  given  a  demon- 
stration of  the  possibility  of  life,  and  that  the 
risen  Lord  has  impressed  upon  the  world  a 
belief  in  the  eternity  of  life.     Under  the  in- 


178       FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

spiration  of  these  two  facts  Christianity  has 
become  a  power  that  has  made  for  the  eman- 
cipation and  elevation  of  the  human  person 
and  the  awakening  of  the  higher  energies  of 
man's  nature.  It  has  filled  the  heart  of  the 
world  with  a  hope  that  has  created  new  views 
of  what  man  is  to  be  and  new  agencies  for 
the  realization  of  that  being. 

3.  He  goes  before  you  for  the  days  that 
are  to  come.  Humanity  marches  into  the 
future  under  the  inspiration  of  a  dual  hope, 
that  the  race  will  attain  to  a  new  world,  that 
the  individual  will  attain  to  a  new  life.  This 
twofold  hope  was  born  of  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus. 

The  other  day,  when  the  Great  War  began, 
and  the  ear  of  the  world  was  filled  with  stories 
of  the  barbarities  of  cultivated  nations,  men 
of  little  faith  complained,  "Christianity  has 
failed."  This  complaint  was  an  unintended 
tribute  to  the  power  of  Christianity.  Why, 
Christianity  has  failed?  Why  not,  education 
has  failed,  science  has  failed,  humanity  has 
failed.^  No,  we  have  considered  humanity 
a  failure,  and  have  not  hoped  greatly  that 
science  or  education  could  redeem  it.  But 
we  have  believed  that  Christianity  was  accom- 
plishing, and  would  ultimately  accomplish  its 
redemption.     And  why   Christianity.?     It  has 


THE  RISEN  LORD  179 

given  to  the  world  the  ideal  of  a  new  age, 
but  this  has  not  been  the  dynamic  of  the  future 
hope  of  the  generations.  Plato  gave  in  his 
Republic  a  vision  of  what  mankind  ought  to 
be.  The  dynamic  of  the  world's  faith  for  the 
future  has  rested  in  those  words  appended  to 
the  Great  Commission,  "Lo,  I  am  with  you 
alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.'*  Hu- 
manity has  accepted  the  challenge  of  Jesus 
to  bring  in  the  future  kingdom,  because  it  has 
believed  that  he  was  present,  working  with 
it,  and  that  in  that  presence  resides  a  power 
that  makes  the  impossible  attainable.  That  be- 
lief was  born  of  the  word  of  a  risen  Lord. 

Sin  is  the  world's  great  problem.  The  hope 
of  the  future  lies  in  breaking  the  power  of  sin. 
The  bringing  in  of  a  new  age  is  not  primarily 
a  matter  of  legislation,  nor  of  education,  but 
of  regeneration.  So  long  as  sin  remains,  man's 
happiness  is  marred,  and  his  possibilities 
destroyed,  no  matter  what  other  gains  are 
made.  Therefore,  from  the  beginning,  hu- 
manity has  looked  for  one  who  could  save 
from  sin.  This  Jesus  claimed  to  do,  not  merely 
by  reason  of  his  own  example,  but  through  his 
ability  to  bring  into  life  a  saving  power.  Be- 
lief in  that  power,  and  therefore  the  hope  of 
a  new  age,  was  born  on  the  day  of  the  resur- 
rection.    For  two  thousand  years  the  Chris- 


180        FUNDAMENTALS  OF  FAITH 

tian  army  has  been  marching  toward  the 
future,  laboring  and  praying  for  the  coming 
of  that  age.  If  Jesus  is  no  Saviour,  if  the 
rock  of  behef  in  his  Saviourhood  is  removed, 
all  the  worse  for  the  world.  Its  hope  of  a 
redeemed  humanity  is  gone.  But  while  unbe- 
lief complains,  millions  in  whose  lives  the  reign 
of  sin  has  been  broken  rise  up  to  reaffirm  their 
hope  of  a  new  world  because  of  their  experience 
of  the  power  of  a  present  Lord. 

Furthermore,  he  goes  before  you  into  the 
valley  of  death.  Life  for  each  of  us  is  filled 
with  uncertainty,  but  in  nothing  is  that  un- 
certainty greater  than  in  the  event  of  death. 
Death  is  the  great  omnipotent  fact,  with  which 
everyone  must  reckon,  yet  about  it  we  know 
nothing  except  that  it  will  come.  The  when, 
the  how,  the  where  are  hidden  from  us.  To- 
day the  babe  is  snatched  from  its  mother's 
arms,  to-morrow  the  youth  is  taken  in  his 
strength,  or  the  wife  and  mother  in  her  woman- 
hood. If  we  could  only  "wrap  the  drapery  of 
our  couch  about  us  and  lie  down  to  pleasant 
dreams,"  but  we  cannot.  No  ministry  that 
can  come  to  human  life  can  contribute  more 
greatly  to  man's  contentment  and  ambition 
than  that  which  can  create  the  belief  that 
death  is  not  an  enemy  but  a  friend.  This  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  has  done.     It  has  put 


THE  RISEN  LORD  181 

in  place  of  the  grave  the  sun-lit  splendor  of 
the  New  Jerusalem.  It  has  filled  human 
hearts  with  a  glad  ambition  to  make  the  most 
of  themselves  and  of  their  time  here,  not 
because  death  is  the  end,  but  because  it  is 
the  true  beginning. 

Then  let  us  rejoice  in  a  risen  Lord  whose 
presence  is  certified,  not  by  extraneous  evi- 
dence, but  by  a  world  of  life  and  love  and 
hope,  which  bears  witness  to  him  every  day. 

"The  Lord  is  risen  indeed. 
He  is  here  for  your  love,  for  your  need — 
Not  in  the  grave,  nor  the  sky, 
But  here  where  men  live  and  die; 
And  true  the  word  that  was  said; 
*Why  seek  ye  the  living  among  the  dead.'^' 

"Wherever  are  tears  and  sighs. 
Wherever  are  children's  eyes. 
Where  man  calls  man  his  brother. 
And  loves  as  himself  another, 
Christ  lives!    The  angels  said; 
*Why  seek  ye  the  living  among  the  dead.*  "^ 


» Richard  Wataon  Gilder,  "Easter."     Boston,  Houghton  Miflain  Com- 
pany. 


